


From the ashes

by heirofstorms



Category: Dark Souls (Video Games)
Genre: Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pre-Canon, Slow Burn, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-23 01:17:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 25,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14321352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heirofstorms/pseuds/heirofstorms
Summary: Unlike Gods, soldiers need to prove themselves in the most gruelling ways, and find strength to carry on in unexpected glimpses of the sun behind clouds.But sometimes the grandest journeys only lead to the most tragic falls.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> To preface this - I'm not a writer of any sorts, I'm an artist who draws bad, sappy, affectionate gays and I'm really, profoundly bad at this but I've promised to publish my so-called hellfic so here you are.  
> Feel free to let me know if you spot anything wild, no beta we die like men.

\---

 

The long grass was waving and rippling in the wind, the bright backsides of the blades flashing in the sun like wrinkles on velvet. They covered the crumbled, uneven side of an old barren mountain; new life sprung from the fresh soil tumbling forward.

Different from the other side of these obscure lands where the landscape was covered in layers of thick, masterfully carved stone, here seemed to lie a patch of unbridled nature, rich with grass and flowers, fruit trees on the hills below. A patch of mist covered the peaks of the rocky cliffs that rose above, on the highest of which Ornstein saw, or thought he saw, an altar of sorts, distorted behind the sheer layer of fog.

The clouds above moved faster, patches of light and dark moved across the hills in front of him. Ornstein could hear them move, obscuring the sun for mere seconds before giving way to its light again. His eyes followed a sunlit patch through the soft grass and towards the mountains.

And that’s where Ornstein first saw him.

From the distance he couldn’t make out more than a swirl of ashen hair surrounding a lonely figure but his heart was filled with a bittersweet familiarity, and in that moment he felt calm. His breathing slowed. Closed his eyes briefly.

This is where he would die, and he made peace with that. Not because the silken grass, the mist-touched mountains, and the elusive sun chased by fast summer clouds made the best burial spot he could imagine, not because the winds flooding in from Irithyll brought a chilling cold that left him numb and unfeeling inside his armour, not because the distant roofs of Anor Londo, somehow still visible from here, welcomed him with a sad glimmer. His past rose walls around him like a tomb and he was content to take his place in it, because it felt like home.

Being slain by the man he loved the most and he betrayed the most, even though it would never right his wrongs or change the course of history, felt right and true in a way nothing he’s ever done before. At the end of their age and in this hidden corner of the world he’d lay down his life, even if it was little more than a gesture, of all the things that had gone unsaid, an apology, a final prayer, freeing the final splinters of love he had left in his heart.

Steady and certain, he started to walk, the powerful rhythm of his heart echoing from his breastplate in tune with his steps, and when the nameless king finally turned to face him, he didn’t falter. The sunlight bouncing off the very tip of his swordspear matched the golden gleam of his eye, and Ornstein knew it would disintegrate him, turn him into ash, scatter him into a final nothingness. But he’d go willingly, he’d go happy, because those eyes would be the last thing he saw.

 

\---

 

Ruin. Smouldering ruin was laid out in front of him, the burnt remains of the archtree they had set alight and pulled down mere hours earlier. The ground before them was covered in a fine layer of ash, soft here, chunky, coarse and filled with soot there; it stuck to their boots and congealed into sticky gray mud where it fell onto pools of water. Floating flakes of embers danced and landed in them, extinguished with a gentle puff of smoke.

Most of the dragons have fled the scene, save for a pair of Ancients, both the size of a mountain. They swooped into the air and the army followed, silver knights and the Lord of Sunlight, Gwyn himself in the midst preparing to tear their wings down with lightning bolts.

The Lord of Sunlight was a true symbol, not just because he was a God, and the mightiest of all Gods; not because he was King and general and led them all to glory, but because in his hands he carried the Sun itself, that which was more than holy and divine, a source of life they marched forth from their dark, lightless homes for, to call their own.

The elite knights, hand-trained by Gwyn and his Firstborn to command the most powerful lightning miracles, were the true backbone of the army. None could fell a dragon before without the power of lightning, hence the Gods were so revered as nobody else possessed the strength to sear through their stone scales and still their hearts. Most silver knights were able to command some form of lightning miracle, powerful enough to kill a drake, maybe a wyvern, but to slay an Everlasting Dragon, a true Ancient, nothing short of divine sunlight would suffice. Precious few were the elite knights who’d slain a dragon themselves.

Ornstein longed to be one of them, if he were to be honest, deep in his heart.

He led a group in the militia, not by rank but by trust and virtue alone. Most of them were untrained with little combat experience; farmers, craftsmen, if lucky, smiths. Like Ornstein, many of them signed up because they were running from something, but some were driven by the stories of glory and a deep, deep desire to create a kingdom on the surface and live in the light like they all believed they deserved. If they would burn the dragons and scorch their homes to get there, mattered none to them. They would also die trying. For the moment, it seemed the latter would happen much sooner.

Burning an archtree didn’t only rile up the dragons, it angered all the lesser wyrms within, those which lacked the sense or the wisdom to flee. There was a reason so much militia was present today, Ornstein noted with a bitter expression; it fell to them rather than the knights to cut through the fleeing ranks or basilisks, lizards and snake-like dragonkin, to brave the cavities of half-burnt archtrees and destroy anything that lurked within and could later arise, creep upon the army as they pressed forward. To know perfectly just how ill-equipped, exhausted and untrained his soldiers were helped none to ease Ornstein’s growing discontentment.

The archtree they had blazed caught fire unnaturally quickly, like it was a distant relative to dry forest pines heavy with flammable amber, and by the time the militia reached it it was little more than a scatter of burning branches and the massive trunk, blackened and split in half, groaning and crackling as the heat bent its branches and peeled the bark away.

It came from above, first just a sound, like a distant screeching cry, before they heard it coming half-crawling, half-tumbling from the collapsing tunnel of the archtree’s trunk. Ornstein took a step back from the charred roots he stood on, eyes locked onto the beast’s as if it gauge its intent. The slit-like, black pupils inside those eyes - fiery-orange, ringed with crimson - turned razor-thin as they focused on him.

A drake.

Of course it had to be a drake.

A fully grown blood red drake, not even a juvenile; back and wings covered in thornlike spikes, jaws wide and the triple row of its fangs dripping with drool. It charged directly at Ornstein, in a flash, he was fast enough to jump and roll away from the wedge-shaped head and dodge the step of a clawed foot.

The rest of his squad scattered. It definitely was beyond what they’d faced before, even in the last few weeks when they’ve been pushing deeper and deeper into dragon-infested territories, and for a moment Ornstein felt powerless to stop it. The beast launched into the air and with two powerful wingbeats, caught up with one of the fleeing soldiers, bit down on his shoulder and threw him into the air. His piercing scream ended abruptly when the drake snatched him out of the air again, like he was a toy, killing him with a bite that pulled his spine apart.

Now bloodied and its fear of the fire clearly overtaken by a thirst for blood the drake spread its wings in front of them, separating them from the rest of the army that marched ahead, downhill towards the dragons that circled menacingly in the sunset sky.

Maybe this is how I die, Ornstein thought. For a moment he was frozen, watching the drake step on and gore one of his group, screeching in pure, deadly anger with blood and guts raining from its fanged maw.

He contemplated it, for a second. Giving up. He felt exhausted and heavy, like his blood had turned to lead; labored breath hissed through his half-closed teeth. Somewhere in his soul he knew that today it was a drake, and tomorrow it may be a dragon, maybe an ancient. He knew that he’ll always be as alone on the battlefield as he was today, small, useless, very human and ill-fit against such displays of primal fury. Fighting was difficult. Staying alive was difficult, but he made a promise to live for two and he, resolute fool, would cling to that promise with ten bloody nails.

“Stay together!” He heard his own voice call, and he was drawn back into his own body, inch by inch, until the longsword in his hand felt cold and heavy again. “There’s no force we cannot defeat as long as we fight as one. Stay together, form rows, and hold your shields above you head as it strikes!” His voice was unexpectedly powerful and the soldiers obeyed. Ornstein wasn’t sure if they trusted his judgement or if they were desperate to hold onto any guidance that offered a splinter of hope, but they were ready, and waiting on his command. Messy but organised rows back to back, shields mismatched and tattered but held firm.

Ornstein had never fought a drake before. He’d seen the knights put them down as if it was nothing, the lightning miracles made their blades slide into the spiked hide much like a hot knife into butter. If they were to truly kill it, there was no other targets but the skull and the heart, and the heart seemed impossible to aim at, caged away behind layers and layers of weathered thorns and reflective, dark scales. No archers, no lightning; no gods, no knights. Just men.

“We’re aiming at its legs, the tendons in the back! We need to bring its head down, people, so we can stab it through-”

Not exactly waiting for him to finish, the drake plunged its beak into the uneven mesh of shields behind the first row, drawing a terrified shout from the troops.

“Push back! Hold tight! Cover the holes and watch for its movements!” Ornstein stepped back, he stood alone behind the lines, back straight and staring at the drake, which for a second stopped attempting to pick at the shields and stared at him curiously. Somebody in the first row dropped a spear and was foolish enough to reach out for it, the drake’s clawed foot landed on the soldier without warning, even without its gaze turning in that direction, splitting the soldier’s arm from their shoulder.

“Back! Step back! Stay together!” Ornstein stared, almost mesmerized, not at the gore but at the drake’s foot as it spread on the ground. Drakes as such only had two legs, for front limbs served their wings themselves with elongated claws at the joint of them; it would be enough to injure one leg heavily enough for a stagger and a fall. The drake picked at the exposed flesh near the face and neck of the fallen soldier. The screaming stopped. The monster threw the remainders of the corpse into the group, it bounced off the shields and landed in the mud with a wet, heavy thump; horrified shouts and gasps echoed between rows of armor and steel.

Ornstein watched, unblinking. The sun ducked below the layer of the clouds and its blinding orange light illuminated the soldiers, the rest of the army and the ranks of knights now but a dark smear across his peripheral vision as they followed the ancients aloft. It was as if time slowed for a moment; Ornstein saw every trembling hand, every set jaw and fearful sigh, every scratch on the worn, second-hand shields. One of the flying everlasting dragons roared in the distance, swooping into the silver knights’ ranks, throwing them into the air like helpless scales flying off a knife cleaning a fish.

The knights would not come.

The lords would not come.

His men were a disposable force kept for this very purpose, to keep lesser foes occupied while they could ground an immortal dragon, they would not wait for them and they would not return.

It was Ornstein and his fifty-some men, weary and terrified, against the drake, and by the gods they would take it to hell with them if they need to. The drake, in tune with his thoughts, screamed, full of a bestial, unfathomable anger, and the violence thudding behind Ornstein’s eardrums hummed in approval. His lips, now drawn, snarl-like, exposed his teeth and he felt as if he was locked in a delicate dance with the beast.

He would kill a drake tonight.

“Form two groups! To my left and right! We’re aiming at the back of its legs, to make it stumble and bring its head down to reach!” He knew they had to establish a push and pull on both sides, to confuse it and keep it from focusing its full force on either group. His men hesitated as it lifted its head up, readying a strike. Ornstein moved forward, through the rows of men, pushing them into position. The drake lunged for him, swift, he raised his shield to cover his head but the sheer force of the attack was too much for his arm, he stumbled. The drake wouldn’t give up, like pecking at the shell of an egg that would inevitably crack.

A soldier to his right stepped in, and those surrounding her followed. Suddenly there were a dozen swords slashing at the drake’s head, cuts bouncing off the thicker scales harmlessly, and from behind the cover of his now-dented shield, Ornstein thrust his sword up almost blindly. It caught the edge of the drake’s nostril and tore it up, leaving it screeching in pain. The beast pulled its head back, flapping its wings, against the sky it looked like a flushed flag of anger. There was a trickle of its blood dripping off the head and onto Ornstein’s shield, it was dark, almost black, and Ornstein laughed, an ugly, violent sound cut short.

“Now! Together! Aim between the back claw and the ankle where the scales are small! Second row - keep your shields up! We protect each other! Hear me? We protect each other!”

They had drawn blood. No matter how small the injury was, the soldiers, invigorated, threw themselves into the fight. Predictably, the drake raised a clawed foot to trample them as soon as the first rows on the left were too close for it to bend its neck to bite at them. They drew back in perfect rhythm with the other group, who now focused their energy on trying to cut into the foot, a spear caught on and slid under the wrinkled skin on the nailbed, the drake staggered in the slightest. It swung its wings around wildly, hoping to catch or at least intimidate the soldiers in the back and wedge a space between them and those, less protected, in the front, as it was running out of ground to thread. Its frustration was clear - too clear, and Ornstein suddenly understood what was coming next.

“Shields up! Shields up above your head! It will-”

The fire engulfed them before he could finish. No way to dodge, they had to rely on what unreliable protection the militia’s second hand, tattered shields were. There was a smell of burning flesh and people yelling in agony. The line broke. Ornstein himself barely managed to pull his shield up in time and the heat of it as it stopped the flames seared through his left arm, tempting him to throw it away. He heard some shields clattering on the ground and knew that without them, his men won’t last minutes against the claws and fangs. They needed to act quickly.

The drake’s legs were still completely uninjured save for the nick above its claw - the sharp edges of swords bounced off the backside of its heel without biting into skin and tendon, even despite the smaller, delicate scales there. It was now clear why the knights called upon the power of lightning. It would be so easy, so straightforward, Ornstein knew exactly what they needed to do to win, where they needed to strike, but their dull blades were certainly the wrong tool for the task. They needed something else - maybe a single, sharp point, but also a means to deliver it with enough force to push it through the tough hide.

“Amelia! Your spear!” Amelia tried to look up, at Ornstein, but she had to duck rapidly and lift her shield to stop the incoming fangs. The drake, now with the shell of shields broken, was picking freely at the exposed soldiers. Ornstein was caught by a sweep of its front claws, chainmail stopping the worst before he could smash his shield into the bones, but there was a sharp pain running around his side. Some of his soldiers, panicked, circled around the drake and met a sweep of the spiky tail. Much as they tried to defend themselves their weapons could do little more than chip the thick horns and fangs on the drake’s head as it trashed wildly, struggling for space. It closed its maw around a man’s shoulder, lifted him up and shook him vigorously, the horrible noise of crushing ribs and bubbling blood filled the air.

“Amelia! We have to get under its feet! Get closer so it can’t pick at you!”

“It will only breathe fire, Captain!”

“It’s not a dragon, it needs more time to recover! We only need one- one step gone wrong. I need your spear! Are you with me?”

Ornstein’s voice was strong, but it had to overpower layers of desperation. He stumbled against the warriors next to him when the beast screamed, high-pitched and nearly powerful enough to make his ears bleed. But just a few steps away Amelia looked at him, eyes empty, before she shook her head and recovered, a stern nod in Ornstein’s direction.

“Everyone, get close! Those with spears, I want you directly next to its feet! Provoke it! Make it step into them! Use its own weight against it!” Ornstein stepped closer, bashing his shield into the drake’s head when it stooped down to bite at a soldier in the back rows. It only served to anger the drake, striking at the soldiers in the back again and again, trying to latch onto a shoulder or an arm.

“Closer! Move closer to the body!”

The spiked chest swung too close to them as they pushed to the feet, the drake grabbed another man, killing him in a second, ripping his head off and scattering blood and chunks of flesh among the ranks. Somebody moved quickly to fill up the space, the sea of shields rippled, closed and moved towards the feet.

It was intimidating, Ornstein knew, to be between those razor-sharp claws and the heavy spikes of the body, to attempt to pierce a foot causing the creature to stumble, potentially falling on and killing all of them. However, from a distance, they had no chance. The drake would pick them off one by one, chase them and burn them to ash, there was no chance to get back to the main body of the army before they’d all get obliterated and the silver knights were too tied down by the dragons, even if they cared.

He pushed forward. If his soldiers couldn’t get into position to pierce a foot, he’d do it himself. The bruises and burns on his hand and arm protested when he lifted his shield, a swipe with his sword in the direction of the beast’s eye deterred it from catching him before he got close.

And then it all happened in a second.

The drake, now unable to reach him and closing its maw around thin air, moved to smash him under its foot. Ornstein, in his attempt to evade it, stumbled back, tripping on someone’s weapon, before being steadied by a hand on his shoulder.

“I’ve got you, Captain.”

Amelia propped her shield onto the ground next to him, the point of her spear angled upwards, awaiting the descending foot. It was perfect. Ornstein knew, felt that it would work.

The point of her spear pierced the scales, slipped into muscle and flesh without much difficulty, piercing through the heel and running towards the ankle before stopping in bone. The drake’s scream was deafening, utterly painful to the human ear, it reared back and stumbled towards the ground, unsteady.

Ornstein knew he had to act fast, he had but a splinter of a moment to get at its head using the very momentum of its falling, giving him a much better chance to pierce tough sinew and hide than he would when he had only his own strength to deliver a killing blow. He threw his shield away and ran, sword drawn, towards the large, pointy head, that was now descending towards the earth. He moved before he could think, unafraid by the crushing weight, stalwart and and steady, he held his sword up with both hands, the point following the soft underside of the drake’s mouth in its rapid descent.

The force of it coming down as the drake fell was staggering, almost enough to pull both his shoulders out of their sockets, and Ornstein fell to one knee, holding onto his sword with every bit of force in him as it was forced through the drake’s mouth, tongue; breached the top of the palate, scraping across it as the angle of the fall changed. It found a softer part and surfaced, with a small fountain of blood, near a nostril.

He let go, rolled away, watching from a step’s distance as the drake’s horned head helplessly bounced back from the ground with a crack, driving the sword in to the crossguard.

The drake fell on one side. There was a horrible crack as its right wing got in the way, trying to hold its massive body up at an angle and strength it was clearly not designed for. It rolled, dragging the limp, bleeding wing around, crushing a soldier who wasn’t quick enough to rush out of the way, and injuring another one with a broken spike that bounced off its back. It writhed pathetically, claws digging into the earth, harmless save for scattering chunks of ash in the air, and Ornstein’s men shouted in celebration. Some of them attempted to get closer to cut at its neck, skin too thick to cause any injury other than a few broken scales bouncing off. The drake swiped two of them away with a rapid twitch of its neck and stood up, swift, breaking the spear stuck in its leg and flapping with its wings.

“Back, get back! It’s not over yet!” Ornstein was unarmed, directly in front of the drake, who was now struggling to open its maw with the sword still lodged in there. It must have been in a delicate spot or having pierced some cartilage because it resisted the pull of the beast’s fearsome jaw muscles and remained, firm, piercing through its head. There was a puff of smoke escaping through a nostril.

“Fire! Out of the way! Get behind it!”

The drake lowered its head to the left. Its eyes flickered to Ornstein, and for a second he admired its stubborn defiance even in such a helpless situation. Then, somehow, through its rows of teeth still dripping blood, it breathed fire.

Ornstein’s body reacted before his mind had. He was close to the monstrous head, but not close enough to get behind it; he was shieldless, defenseless against the fire which swept towards him in a semi-circle, obstructed by teeth, tongue and blade the fan-like flames hissed out of its jaw, so bright they left dancing white spots in his vision. The drake’s throat, chest illuminated in a bright orange, maybe its own body wasn’t designed for the heat of them concentrated and withheld as such. Head like a sharp arrow, the shape of the sword almost seemed organic, like it belonged with the fangs and horns.

Wind and scorching heat assaulted his ears, a voice, or the memory of it like a feather floating on the raging scene of war around him. He wouldn’t die yet, not now, not today.

Some part of Ornstein, a deep muscle memory from his younger years that was voracious for life and the pain of it, pushed him to move much quicker than he thought he was able to. He ran towards the head, rolled in the dirt and slid on half knee to grab a sword off the ground that belonged to the soldier crushed by the drake’s fall (head at an odd angle, unseeing eyes looked at Ornstein and fed his anger, brighter than dragonfire).

He quickly recovered from the slide, ran and jumped against the flat scales on the drake’s sternum as it lay fairly still while spitting fire. He reversed his grip on the longsword while midair, and with both legs coming down hard against the drake’s neck, he launched himself into the air.

It was a powerful backflip, one he had done a million times before, albeit on ropes and poles at his most dangerous. His balance was somewhat upset by the sword in his hand but not enough to make him fall, his full body tensed into a smooth curve, momentum carrying him. Just as the spray of flames had ended, he crossed the space left between him and his target, and with his gloved left hand he held onto the tip of his very sword he’d plunged through the wyrm’s head.

He dangled awkwardly for the moment, feet unable to find purchase as the drake shook its head violently, tearing the wound inflicted by the blade in its head furter, loosening it. It tried to snap at Ornstein’s legs with its teeth, but still couldn’t open its jaw wide enough. Ornstein, leaning onto the nose with his upper body, and with every muscle burning in his left arm, tried to pull himself up, futile. From the corner of his eye he saw the throat illuminating behind red scales, it was like clotted blood, like melting amber and the very heat of it made his skin ache like a heavy sunburn. More fire would come, and with his legs vulnerably hanging above the jaw he had no options to protect against it.

As quick as he could, he took his sword between his teeth, now using both hands to grab onto a thick, curved horn just above the eyebrow, he managed, through inhuman effort, to pull himself up. The fire came regardless, some of it hissing through the nostrils and a jet of it hit his ribs before he could move out of the way, he gasped, clenching his jaw around the metal he held, it tasted like ashen dirt, metal and revolting drake blood, and for a moment focusing on it shielded his mind from the pain. He didn’t loosen his grip, too focused on finding the next spike to reach for to even flinch. He felt his blood run down his stomach, thick and almost cold against the scorched skin.

He was now halfway propped on one knee, on his side, holding onto the fearsome spikes on its forehead as the drake continued to spit fire and jerk its head from side to side, in a futile effort to pry him off.

For a moment, Ornstein could feel its desperation, its fear, powerless in the face of the small human who stabbed through its head and climbed it like it was nothing. Ornstein drew strength from it. Pushing himself upright, he finally stood up, sword back in hand, balancing perfectly against the now-stilled movements of the drake. In that moment, Ornstein’s heart knew it feared him more than a drake before has ever feared a human. Him, Ornstein, who came from nothing, who’d been tread on and beaten and drug through the dirt, and now he’d make dragons fear his name.

He stood, powerful and proud, outlined by the sun behind him, before he drew his sword, and holding it with two hands and at his full strength, stabbed it downwards into the drake’s eye.

There was a shriek, much worse than before, and a stream of blood cascading from the eye socket. For a moment Ornstein doubted that even this would be enough to kill the beast, he twisted the sword and tugged at it, changing the angle until he felt it prod against bone.

As if it was a human’s pained sigh, the drake exhaled, slowly losing strength, remaining wing dropping towards the ground, limp. Then its struggle stilled, and its whole body went tumbling forward, so sudden that it nearly sent Ornstein flying. He jumped off the head before it made impact, rolled out the fall using his left arm, which left white-hot pain shooting up into his shoulder and neck. He stood up, shaking, trying to collect himself before a body made impact with his, his first instinct to raise a fist as defense.

It was Amelia.

“You did it! Captain, Sir, you killed it!”

Ornstein merely grunted in response, too weary to feel any sort of victorious. The drake’s fallen body piled up a small hill of ashen soil as it tumbled forward. Its skin looked darker already, like death drained all the colour from it, crimson and amber now faded to rust and dried blood brown. Ornstein breathed in, deep, above the smell of burnt flesh and sweat and steel he felt something, a breeze, hitting the back of its neck. It crept up his spine, soothing and alarming at the same time, leaving goosebumps in its wake, and the blisters and cuts on his back burned, burned, burned.

A moment of solemn silence fell over him as he exhaled, letting go of his feelings and paying respect to the life he took.

Amelia was still standing next to him, much taller than himself, blue eyes filled with relief and, he recognised with some apprehension, awe.

“I can’t believe it. You saved us, I-”

“There’s no time to celebrate, Amelia. Grab who can walk, we need to catch up with the knights. I know we’re all hurting, but the fight isn’t over, and we’re soldiers. We need to go.”

“Sir.”

His left arm was, beyond any doubt, unusable. Whether it was broken or just sprained remained to be seen, and Ornstein held it close to his body as he stepped on the drake’s head to free his sword from its skull.

It was as if the body was smouldering from the inside, releasing some light, transparent smoke that Ornstein had never seen before, or maybe he just imagined it. That gentle wind he’d felt before swept across him, messing up his dark braids, making him hiss when it tugged the shirt over the burn on his side. Fresh blood ran down his stomach again and he groaned, ragged.

Amelia was looking back at him, worried, but the rest had already started to walk towards the rest of the army, and she knew they needed her assistance more than their captain. All of them were too exhausted or injured to truly run or even hurry, but they made progress nonetheless, made easier by their downhill path, also giving them clear vision of the battlefield. There were scattered bodies half-buried in the ash, some armored, but most just like them, simple men not warforged against dragons and their kin, one of the fifty battalions of militia out here today who fought for life, for home.

But his men didn’t stop to contemplate their fate, and Ornstein followed them, sword in hand, watching the silver knights from a distance.

They moved as one to shield against the dragonfire, syllables of commands floating on the wind, the tall shields locking perfectly and diverting the flames. They moved, swift and fluid in diamond-shaped formations, supported by archers in the back with lightning-enchanted greatbows easily bigger than an average man.

Anger flared up anew in Ornstein’s heart. Of course they’d march forward and leave the militia to deal with the drake, though it would have taken them minutes to kill it or chase it off. It’s always up to the fools and the peasants like himself with tattered shields and chipped, dull swords to risk death felling basilisks and kin, and now a drake, while the knights marched with the Lords and their sunlight spears behind them, and pulled the ancients down from the sky. Flawless silver shields enchanted against dragonfire, two squads of giants spread out in a wide arc, arrows glimmering and similar in shape and size to a battering ram. Gwyn, the Lord of Sunlight himself, even though Ornstein couldn’t see him (of course he couldn’t, foolish peasant, son of humans, close to nothing) was there, in the centre, throne carried on giants’ shoulders, calling the Sun’s power to carry them to victory.

“He’s coming!” A shout drew his attention. More voices near him joined. “It’s him! He joins the battle!” Confused, he turned around to Amelia.

“Who’s coming?”

“Him!” Amelia pointed at the sky, near the edge of his vision where the clouds were rapidly assembling and turning ink black. Ornstein heard thunder. “The Heir!”

 

That was the first time Ornstein had ever seen him.

 

He’d seen Lord Gwyn before, amongst his elite knights, in the midst of battle, though his face was obscured by light and his form much too imposing for him to stare at or even gaze upon. But not the Prince, the Heir of Sunlight.

Ornstein knew he was a God of War, and it was rumored he joined the ranks of foot soldiers, and charged into battle ahead of them, executing dragons on his own, unscathed. Ornstein knew that he commanded lightning like no other, that he was God of Storms, but he wasn’t prepared for the view.

The sky, within moments, turned completely dark, the storm clouds towered over the setting sun, as if trying to push it into the horizon. The shadow of them was unsettling, somehow reminiscent of the passing age they crawled from, the dark underground that was their own and the only thing they knew. Light simmered through gaps beneath the clouds like hundreds of graceful lightning spears. Ornstein could hear, feel the clouds move - a deep distant rumbling, broken by the sharp sounds of the dragons’ wings pushing against the air, much like a million hands clapping in sync.

The Heir walked past the lines of the silver knights, wearing intricate, heavy armor that looked more intimidating than convenient. His cape was a dull rust red, so was the strip of cloth wrapped around his peculiar spear. But maybe the most noticeable thing about him was his hair; it was an ashen gray, unbound, flowing freely around his shoulders, fresh soot from a fire just put out. His features were impossible to make out from this distance, but his eyes were a blazing gold as he raised his spear towards the sky.

His shout was like the deepest fury of thunder. It brought a bolt of lightning down from the skies into the hide of the Ancient swirling through the clouds above them, making contact just behind a dark wing, splinters of electricity resonating through the entire statue-like body of the dragon. It wavered, but didn’t fall.

The silver knights mirrored his battle shout, battalions after battalions of echoes in the angry wind.

The Heir started running towards the injured dragon. He split from the front line of the army, he was alone, a sole, glorious image of violence, of victory. His movements were smooth, elegant despite the heavy suit of dark iron armour he wore. He swept behind himself with his blade, lifting into the air on a gust of wind, the grace of the movement struck an even starker balance against his weight and size as he defied the laws of gravity. Still midair, his right hand extended behind him, grabbing into the air, summoning a bolt of light into his hand with a crackle. Against the darkened sky it illuminated his form and the double jaw of the dragon now reaching to crush him between its teeth.

He let the sunlight spear loose. It travelled along the hide of the dragon, until it found the root of its wing, the spot where his previous bolt had already seared and cracked the dark scales.

There was a horribly loud crunching noise, as the wing broke, flopped to the side only held by a flap of skin.

The Heir, now without the wind under his feet, dropped on one knee and slid under the chest of the dragon just as it was about to make impact with the ground, the tip of his spear angled with its heart. He called for lightning again.

It seared through the dragon’s body, between the gruesome wound and exposed bone of the broken wing and the tip of the swordspear just about to graze the thick scales on the belly. It illuminated the dragon's entire chest cavity and ribs, making it seem much more flesh and blood where before it had been a cold stone statue, immovable, eternal. 

Instead of dropping to the ground on its natural path, the shock of the last bolt threw the dragon’s whole body away, keeping the Heir from getting crushed. He stood up, facing the dragon as it struggled to stand, unsteady, now on four legs. It seemed bloodless, or maybe the lightning burned away the blood, there was nothing dripping from its injuries, however severe. For a second it just stared the Heir in the eyes, with an ancient, smouldering hate.

And then the silver knights were upon it, led by Gwyn’s elite. Their swords, touched by the power of lightning, bit into its gruesome hide with frightening efficiency, the air was filled with dust and ash kicked up by the struggling dragon as dozens, maybe hundreds of silver soldiers descended to make their mark.

It was the Heir who ended its struggle, with a sole, swift stab behind the head, likely severing the spine between two massive vertebrae. The black clouds started dissipating as soon as he drew back his blade. In the distance, the other Ancients retreated from sight, hiding between or behind the Archtrees that still stood, unrelenting, against the horizon, holding the sky upon their crowns.

The battle was over. The war wasn’t.

Ornstein stared with a blank expression, watching the Heir stand next to the gargantuan skull of the dragon, as it was slowly breaking down to ash and scattering in the evening wind, building a sheer layer above the bodies on the field. He was radiant, bright hair flowing freely in the wind, gleam of the red, dying sun reflecting off every point on his iron armour. In that moment, Ornstein felt it again. The same thing he felt when he first beat a man in a fight, when he first saw a silver knight, when he first held a hand; he wanted to live. He wanted to learn and grow, see how far his feet would take him, win the war and build a kingdom on the ruins like he thought he could as a child.

The Heir carried with him a promise of that victory, and Ornstein knew in his heart that he’d follow him to the ends of the earth.

 

\---

 

“Excuse me? May I have a word with you?”

They set up camp in a nearby cave. A million torches and oil lanterns blazed in the dark of the night, the glow against the dark painfully familiar, homely. Tents were set up and the supply carts slowly caught up with the mass of the army, canteens and makeshift alehouses filling the air with comforting smells.

Ornstein was surrounded by his squad, and for a moment he smiled, hand after hand reaching for his hand, his shoulder - he was their commander, and he killed a drake, much as he said it was an equal effort from all. He broke away from them, promising to return later for a proper celebration; for now he’d joined the long line to the healing tents they set up for the militia’s foot soldiers with minor injuries. He had an arm he could barely move, a set of burns on his shoulder and ribs, and hopefully enough patience not to turn around and just drink himself into bed, hoping it gets better by tomorrow.

Lots of people needed aid, but the Lords’ healers and Lady Gwynevere’s scions were occupied helping the knights; most in these tents were inexperienced clerics and initiates of the Way of the White. Ornstein never fancied clerics, he’d been a murderer, a liar and a sinner too long to find solace in their words.

“Yes, what is it?” He was surprised to see a silver knight here, a captain nonetheless judging by the shape of his pauldron and helmet, and in the militia’s rough cut encampment of all places, instead of the comfortable, sturdy and far better supplied camp set up for them in the caves on the mountainside above. “I’m sorry ser, I’d not realised I was talking to a knight of the Lords. How may I help you?” He bowed a little, more a gesture he’d grown used to than a true show of respect.

“I was wondering if I could ask for your name, soldier.” The man was overly polite to one such as him, and Ornstein raised an eyebrow. He looked to be in his early forties, a head taller than Ornstein, light skin, short, curly brown hair and restless blue eyes. “I’m Sir Grayson, captain of the fourth division, silver knight. I saw your performance today, taking that drake down, they’re harvesting the bones as we speak. I thought I’d have a word with you if it’s not too much trouble.”

“Thank you for the compliment, ser, but it wasn’t my performance, it was a combined effort of the whole squad. Rather not take more credit than due.” He hesitated, for a second, it’s not that he wouldn’t dare turn down a silver knight captain, but he was smarter than doing so before he knew his motives. “And I’m Ornstein. I’ve no true rank, just the trust of those who fight with me; they call me captain.”

“You’re being too modest, Sir Ornstein. It was with your direction, your guiding hand that the drake was taken down - was it not you who thought to pierce its foot with its own weight? Did you not find his weak spots, stab it through the tongue? Kill it with your own two hands by piercing the eye? The drake is dead, without a single bolt of lightning - You’ve done with the power of your hand, a couple of dull blades and your skill as commander what we do with miracles and magic.”

Somebody talked, Ornstein thought. This much detail couldn’t have been observed by someone far down the hill, fighting with the silver knights - he must have gone through his squad, the injured of all because the rest had stayed with him after the battle. He must have questioned them, and if he was in a better mood, Ornstein would have been intrigued by the effort he went through to get their accounts. As it was, he merely scoffed.

“Maybe it would have been of use to have a team of silver knights stick around helping us deal with it. Maybe just half a dozen, it would have made a difference. As you said, what is a drake for those who command lightning? Those who are fully armored, and don’t have to face it in tatters?”

Sir Grayson sighed, it was an annoyed sigh that he tried to cover with a compassionate look. He put his hand on Ornstein’s shoulder.

“Walk with me, please.”

Ornstein stepped out of the line and followed him, the gaze and whispers of nearby soldiers following Sir Grayson with interest. He allowed himself to be led down a path around the healing tents, towards a darker corner of the cave where save for a few torches the expanse of stalactites and narrow tunnels seemed untouched.

“I’m here to offer you to take you on as a silver knight.” Sir Grayson started, as soon as they were alone. The tents looked more like paper lanterns from here, white linen lit from the inside, shadows of clerics and injured warriors coming and going as if part of a grotesque puppet theatre. The light fell onto Grayson’s face at an odd angle, making his wrinkles deeper and stubble more prominent, he looked older than his age. “We offer to train you, show you new forms of combat, teach you the miracles of the Gods. With them, a drake will be nothing but a critter to push out of the way when you march towards your true enemies. Maybe we’ll turn you into a dragonslayer, instead of drakeslayer.” He grew agitated after Ornstein didn’t reply immediately. “Unless, of course, you’d rather stay with the farmers and peasants, following in our footsteps, cleaning up the garbage.”

“Believe me-” It took every last bit of Ornstein’s little remaining energy not to let his voice get laced by ire. He breathed out, voice smoothing, now almost gentle despite the edge his words carried. “Believe me, Sir, there’s nothing I want more than to become a knight. It’s why I joined. I want to fight, and I want to make a difference.”

“What’s the reason for your hesitation then?” Sir Grayson started to walk again with a reluctant Ornstein following him a step behind, towards the back entrance of the healers’ tent, and Ornstein followed him, steps heavy with restrained energy.

“If for instance I’m gone, and you pluck every viable candidate from the militia, who will lead them? You’re a captain, you would understand what I’m saying. If there was no leader on the field today, the entire squad would have fallen to that drake. We were neither equipped, nor trained to deal with it.”

“Yet you have. You, with no experience led a squad with no skill to victory. That’s why I say your talents are wasted on the militia. You could be captain, commander along ranks of knights. Maybe even make it elite. The militia, at the moment, are little more than fodder, a distraction for lesser wyrms. Some of them will make it silver, most of them won’t make it, period. It is not our intent to run an army of inepts, they’re only needed as long as we need the bodies, and the gears of war are turning. You have to decide if you want to charge ahead, or be left in the dust.”

Grayson lifted the flap of the tent and gestured for Ornstein to step inside. Ornstein looked at the healers, almost waiting to be scolded for skipping the line, but they merely nodded at Grayson - clearly, this was a common occurrence.

“You deserve more than a leadership over sixty untrained warriors who roll into the mud quivering at the sight of a wyrm. But you must choose between ambition and your pointless care for those who cannot and would not keep up with you, nor be able to protect your back in a true battle. The clerics will see to your injuries now. I’ll wait for you outside. Think about it, Ornstein.”

Ornstein, although seemingly calm, was seething inside. He’d not wished to see Ser Grayson’s ugly thoughts worm themselves to the surface after such little provocation. With his left shoulder swollen and difficult to move, he struggled to take his tunic and shirt off for the healers to see his burns and cuts.

His skin was a mess, a myriad bruises and scrapes were scattered across his chest and stomach, some fresh and just blossoming under the top layer of his skin, some half-healed and fading. The long cut running from his side to his back, caused by the drake’s front claw, may have been ugly and smeared with dried blood but wasn’t deep enough to be dangerous. The burn on his ribs however was well over the size of his palm, skin raw and sticking to the fabric of his clothes. His left arm had seen the worst, burned in several places, the exact outline of his shield’s straps seared into the skin now, and his shoulder beyond sore and swollen to twice its size.

A young cleric examined his skin. He was short, almost shorter than Ornstein, hair so black it had a bluish sheen. His touch was ice cold and Ornstein huffed in discomfort. He’d never been fond of having his injuries examined and on several occasions he’d dodged healers because of their propensity to feel his skin and body in such a curious way, like it was a torn robe or a broken machine.

“Just cast a miracle and be done with it.” He hissed between closed teeth and pulled his arm away, the pain increasing tenfold from the sudden movement. The cleric drew back, gaze inquisitive on Ornstein’s face, but he turned his eyes away apologetically when he understood his discomfort was genuine.

“I’m very sorry, Sir, we’ve been advised by the Lords to save our focus and energy, treat as many injuries through traditional means as we possibly can. Miracle work is exhausting, and the Lords would rather have us use it on people in critical states or on the battlefield.”

He’s doing his job, Ornstein reminded himself. The cleric had peculiar hazel eyes, a ring of bronze in the very middle. Dark skin, gentle eyes. He’s doing his job as he’s told, with no thanks, no glory, no drakeslayer’s fame.

“I’m sorry for snapping at you” Ornstein’s voice was low now, heavy with hesitation. The priest waited patiently at his side until he was ready to carry on, and he appreciated the gesture. “I know you’re doing your best to help us, and I value it more than I can express it.”

“I’m afraid I’ll need a miracle to heal that broken arm of yours anyway, Sir.” The priest smiled, almost sad. Ornstein closed his eyes and relaxed, watching as the younger man walked to select a talisman from the table they set up behind. “Not much use for a silver knight with a broken arm these days.”

Ornstein sighed. He wasn’t sure if the cleric had heard the conversation, of if this was just Sir Grayson’s regular course of action.

The miracle filled his body with warmth, from toes to his carefully braided hair, and there was a second of burning pain searing through his arm and shoulder as, he assumed, the bone was fused back together. His eyes rolled back and his nails dug into his palms as he tried to take it without changing his expression. When it was gone, there was nothing but a lingering warmth in his body, settling in his stomach, but it didn’t ease the knot caused by his frustration over his predicament.

“All done. Just don’t go and break it again.”

“Thank you. I’ll try not to.”

“Please sit still for a few moments, there’s a bench on the side. Stronger miracles may be disorienting for some. I’d rather you go back out there when you feel secure in your step than collapse on our dear knight-captain.

The priest smiled, Ornstein thought him attractive for a second, and wondered if clerics are allowed at all to accept drinks or invitations, much less arrangements of the worldly and physical nature, but he stopped the course of his thoughts when the cleric turned around to open the flap of the tent and take the next patient, without hesitation or complaint. I’m not worth his time, Ornstein decided.

A dull ache of tiredness grew in his legs, his back as he rested on the bench, watching the priests tending to the soldiers through half-lidded eyes. You must choose between ambition and your pointless care, the words echoed in his head. He recalled the events of today, tried to focus on the moments that filled him with exhilaration, a hunger to become more than he already was. The consuming anger he felt, alone and left to die as the knights marched forward while the drake pulled his soldiers apart. The pure, almost human fear radiating from the drake as he stood on its head in the low sunset light, ready to deliver a final blow. The breeze on his neck as he stood on the battlefield, bruised and powerful and victorious.

Groaning archtrees, set alight. Racing black clouds. The crackle of lightning, crashing against eternal stone scales, screams of an ancient as it’s pulled down from the sky by one sole hand.

Golden eyes of victory scanning the horizon towards him, a lonely little soldier, longing to be more. To be War, to be Victory, to become those two hands cracking the sky open and pushing a blade into the unrelenting stone-like skull of an immortal dragon.

He stood up, resolute. Maybe the day will never come but when he looked at the Heir, he knew what he wanted to be, he felt such a wave a surety and determination that he hasn’t felt since he’d won his first battle and looked up at the sky, scattered with blinking stars.

He’d be a knight, if that’s what it takes.

 

\---

 

Ser Grayson was waiting for him outside, smoking a pipe he must have hidden in some pocket on his belt. The smoke rose towards the distant ceiling of the cave, coiling snakes of white against the torches’ yellow backdrop.

“So, have you come to a decision?”

“I have. But before I make it known, I’d like to ask one thing, respectfully, Sir. Do you know how many people in my squad died today?” Ornstein’s voice was even, not letting the fury creep back in. “Nine. I know all their names. I will mourn them. We all will. Twenty more are waiting in that line. Six are gravely injured, lying in the other tents, holding on.”

“Your point?” The knight-captain looked vaguely amused and Ornstein, disciplined and steadfast, ignored his tone.

“If the knights had stopped to help with that drake, none of them would have died. They marched forward, waited, and held their shields up against an everlasting dragon’s fire, a dragon that took a God’s blade to be taken to the ground. They could have killed that drake, and joined the same spot with no disadvantage to them. And we would have suffered no loss.”

“You play by your own rules, Ornstein of the militia, but us, we follow a higher order. We’re an army, not a horde of drake fodder. We do not act on impulse, on generosity, we act on orders, and it’ll serve you well to learn that. It is not within your rights to make that call and it will forever be out of your reach, leave a commander's work for a commander. Yet, I stand impressed with your abilities, which is why I’m allowing you to probe my patience so.”

“I want some insurance. I want to know that if I leave these people, there will be efforts to get them better trained, armed, led, treated as a part of the army and not disposable, or as chew toys for our enemies. I want Amelia of Hallows’ Stone to lead them, and I want spears, trainer archers, and intact, functioning shields.”

Ser Grayson laughed, short and with no joy in his expression, he slapped Ornstein’s shoulder and stepped closer to him, but his intent to intimidate was as empty as his laugh.

“A fool you are, to demand of me these things that I do not possess. There’s no single man in charge of how the militia is treated - we’ve councils but as always, the Lords have a final say in any matter. The best way to advocate for them, if they’re so dear to your heart, is to join the knights yourself, train until you’re dead with exhaustion, prove yourself, become a captain, attend the council, make your voice heard. Not that these resources are ours, there are Lords and Gods, superiors and superiors.” Sir Grayson sighed, shaking his pipe out and putting it away. “Look, I’ll be honest with you. I’ve allowed your blabbering about this rabble because I stand impressed you killed a drake with your own two meager hands, despite my gut telling me that you may be a great warrior, a mighty warrior with every heroic intent, but you’d make a terrible soldier. A disobedient, dangerous, rebellious soldier maybe. However, I was asked to put my worries aside when I was asked to talk to you, by the Commander of the knights, Sir Havel himself - surely he didn’t want to brave this section of the encampment. It’s not the most sanitary. However, should you refuse I’m sure it’d be to his utmost disappointment.”

Ornstein was taken aback, speechless for a second, a rare occurrence indeed.

“How would the Commander know about me?”

“He and a captain of the second division, by the name of Sir Artorias, talked about recruiting you this morning. You’ve taken over fifteen militia squads in your career, a remarkably short career I might add, and you’ve led them with a proficiency unexpected of a - what are you again? Circus boy? Hah. You slaying that drake merely escalated things. You've taken it upon yourself to train the men under your command in your free time, you're a leader they're willing to follow regardless of official rank and file. You know who to push forward and hold back on the battlefield. The squads you've taken over have suffered the least losses out of all in the past year. We notice.”

A headache was creeping in. As much as Ornstein felt revolted by this whole exchange, he was being offered to become a knight for his skill alone, and even though it came from a man who disrespected him and his own when he knew he couldn't retaliate, the recognition was there, grabbing some horrible, blackened, prideful part of his heart. But more than anything he felt exhausted by the argument. Exhausted by the battle and the healed wounds, and his own swirling, restless thoughts. He wouldn’t drag something on that he had no choice in, and something he, deep down, always wanted.

“I will join the silver knights.” He said with a finality.

 

\---

 

He was left wandering alone, back towards the tents where he and his squad would sleep. Voices of celebration filled the air, but he heard none of them, only his own thoughts as he walked by.

Apprehension filled his stomach, icy and nauseating.

He remembered himself as an eighteen year old, burnt and bloody, just having buried everyone who he’d considered family, making the same walk back to the barracks, volunteering to join the army. Knowing full well what would await him in the ranks of the militia, expecting, almost welcoming a swift death from one foe or another. Yet he carried on - one uncertain foot after the another, living through battle after battle, never fleeing from a foe; his body that he’d loathed became a weapon, his experience, his skill with acrobatics, his precision and clarity of thought became a quintessential part of his success and he’d learned to hate himself no more.

He wanted to be a knight. He would have killed to be a knight, and now that he was, it was so anticlimactic, so underwhelming in every sense. There was no lords to pledge loyalty to, no ceremony, his future knight-commander looked at him as if he was dirt on his boots.

Despite everything, there was a small smile on his lips. He grabbed a flask of ale as he passed by the canteen.

It was a beginning, not a glorious one, but it was so thoroughly his, it was real and dirty and disappointing, it was the first step of a steep climb.

He’ll be a knight then. Inglorious, undignified, lifted from the mass of the rankless and nameless as a pointless gesture. He’d prove them wrong by merit and strength, watch them shrink and grovel as he was lifted above them in rank, and duel every last one of them to the death if he had to.

He’d be the splitting lightning cast from the sky, he’d be the point of a spear piercing through flesh and skin, he'd be a golden symbol of courage itself.

The day would come, he thought as he neared the bonfire his squad was huddled around, drinks in hand, jumping on their feet as they saw him approach, the day would come when he’d fear no more, be disrespected no more, he’d defeat and conquer and tear down the very sky with the very last dragon in it with the sunlight eyes of War on him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Been a while and I have no excuse. Please enjoy Ornstein being mildly to moderately incompetent in a lot of words.

 

 

In his dream, he walked the path again, the path into nothing that haunted him over and over when he sank too deep into the blissful unconsciousness of sleep. His feet were bare, he could feel the cold of the ground, the sharp grainy texture of the dirt and rocks beneath him; enchanted he watched the puff of colourless dust as he took a step.

He was walking on ash.

The path was clear, dark stone against the stark ashen bright of the ground. The sky draped over him, a monotone, dull gray, clouds unmoving.

He raised his eyes to the horizon, where the path disappeared, covered by a blanket of milk-white fog that was creeping closer. Above, tinted blue by the distance, threatening mountains rose, and he could hear them whistle and roar as they broke the sweeping wind. Disorganised and sharp, like a row of predatory teeth from a beast’s crushed skull.

The fog slowly embraced him, it was a barrage of blistering cold droplets on his skin that vapourised on the warmth of contact and surrounded him in what looked like pure white smoke. Beyond the fog, maybe twenty steps ahead, there was a wall of wind, guiding the mist into endless whirling patterns. Unnatural. Unfamiliar. The air seemed to suddenly halt and stream upwards rapidly to form the wall, he experimentally reached towards it and his fingers remained intact. He pushed ahead shoulder first, one foot after the other, steady. Past the initial wall, the wind was unyielding, it tore at his ashen hair and he was deafened by the howl of it. There was some sort of primordial fear in the pit of his stomach, lead-heavy and liquid, locking him into a state of frozen, battle-ready anticipation.

“Son of God, they call you. Son of Sunlight.” His head whipped around, looking for the source of the voice. It was little more than a whisper on the wind, or rather a million whispers, forming all into one voice. Millions of echoes, like ghastly hands, reached out for him to latch onto his armour, his hair, to rip away the flesh from his bones with an unstoppable power. The voice laughed at his bewildered eyes, gradually getting louder until it was as powerful as a rockslide. He stopped pushing forward on the path, feet firmly planted, body tense.

“Son of the Destroyer. Gwyn, the Voracious. He Who Feasts. Breaker of Dawn, Bringer of Ruin. You were ripped from his body, compared to him you’re nothing but a blinding little mirage. Are you lost? Why would your soul wander to mine in your sleep?”

“Who are you?” His shout crashed into the distance, shattered into a million echoes charging back at him, every “are you” mocking louder and louder until it abruptly stopped. He was rewarded with another rumbling laugh.

“I’m your destiny, aren’t I? That’s what they will tell you. That you must kill me and every last one of mine to stake your claim on this earth. I’m your unbecoming.”

He stepped forward again, sliding his foot against the increasing pressure of the wind, droplets of water from the fog cutting into his skin as they flew by. Within a few steps he was forced to one knee, scraping it raw as he tried to hold his ground. The ash stuck to his wound, stinging like acid.

“Tell me who you are!” His shout didn’t waver, but it was swallowed by the wind, the echoes bore into the unending mist, stillborn.

“You stand on the precipice of change. One way or another, I am at the end of your road. You will know who I am when you reach me.”

And then, all of a sudden the wind subsided. Drops of water fell to the ground in perfect harmony, disturbing the ash at his feet.

When he looked up, he saw the jagged mountains in the distance come alive, cracks running in the ground towards him, the rising boulders twisting into the serpentine curve of a dragon uncurling from sleep. A shadow fell over him.

 

The firstborn woke. He was covered in ice cold sweat, still taking shallow panicked breaths. That voice was still echoing in his head, and the cold terror of it was still real and heavy in his guts.

When he put his feet on the thick wolf skin rugs, he noticed a light scar on his knee, just like a freshly healed scrape.

 

Sure enough, the firstborn understood the reasons why they needed to remain hidden in the shadows of natural rock ridges bordering the stretch of ashen plains. Regardless, he hated this cave camp they’d burrowed into like insects.

The tents of the royals and gods were located on a steep cliff edge, above the commanders’ and knights’ camp. The mountain ridge cracked ages ago and the wind was allowed passage to bite away at the softer, porous parts of the rock, which, given centuries gave way to hollow shafts running downwards and connecting in a wider, hall-like expanse. From where he stood he could see all the way to the bottom if he stretched his eyes. The sun was only a stripe of red on the horizon, but the thousands of lanterns and bonfires, torches and candles allowed him to catch glimpses of the base camp in the depths, filled with the brunt of the army. Thousands upon thousands of common soldiers, cooks, builders still in constant movement in the dead of the night to keep everyone supplied, fed and ready for battle. He didn’t know where the ringed knights were stationed, and he didn’t particularly want to find out; his father was ready to stuff them away into some cold, dark corner like an ugly secret.

This, the uppermost cliffside, which was privy to the divine, was the only one that saw sunlight directly through the eroded holes of the rock ceiling and the firstborn felt an odd rush of shame looking down at the leagues of knights and soldiers who served them. All of them rose from the same lightless world, fought for every inch of land they could ever claim from the dragons, and now they’re denied the morning sun. He sat down on the edge and closed his eyes, imagining himself with grand feathered wings, lifting himself through the open wounds of the mountain, gliding towards the pink morning horizon on the rising heat from the ashen plains of war.

“Brother? You’re up early.” Gwynevere could always approach him so quietly he’d jump at her voice, to his frustration and to her immense satisfaction. It reminded him of simpler times when they were children and Gwynevere would drop rocks and insects down his shirt, one time a big, slimy and very panicked toad that didn’t exactly volunteer for the job. He remembered sneaking a couple of rotten eggs into his sister’s bed as a revenge. It felt like a million years had passed since. He smiled and bowed his head towards her.

“Wanted to see the sun come up. Helps me calm down. Do you want to sit with me?”

“Sun knows I have no desire to freeze my behind off on that cold stone.” He laughed. Gwynevere had such a majestic presence it was easy to forget she could be so entertaining in private. When outside their father’s earshot she had a raw, often crass honesty to her that the firstborn endlessly appreciated. “Is it troubling dreams again?”

The firstborn didn’t answer. The first direct ray of the sun hit the cracks in the ceiling, painted an orange strip of light across his face that momentarily hid the dark under his eyes.

“You do look awful, brother. Sometimes it’s hard to believe we’re from the same mould.” The prince raised an eyebrow at her and she laughed, stepping closer to slap his shoulder. Against her better judgement and not without an annoyed groan she sat down on the stone next to him to get nearer to his face. “You’re starting to have wrinkles. Your hair is a mess. And your hands? All scratched up from lightning again.”

“You’ve had too much sitting on those silk pillows in the tents. Maybe you ought to come to the battlefield with me. I remember you throwing lightning bolts just as well as I. It’s a waste of talent that you’ve chosen to use the Sun to heal.”

“We all have our own virtues.” - She was quiet for a moment, contemplating the question he already knew she’d ask. “Same dream?”

“It started the same.” - The cold fear of the dream crept back into his sigh. - “I don’t know, Nevere. Do you think it could mean something?”

“It means your mind is set on the war and the changing of age, nothing else, nothing more.” - Her hand felt warm on his shoulder, a gentle but firm squeeze to drag him back into reality. - “Leave grim prophecies for the prophets. And the drunk.”

They sat in silence for minutes, watching the rays of light gradually change angles and illuminate the jagged stalactites in the deepening chasm of the cave. The camps were waking below, the clangs of metal and faint echoes of heavy footsteps made him feel less isolated, less alone. He smelled baking bread, somewhere.

“You’d better go and get ready. You’ll be training with Father today, if your head isn’t put on straight he will kick you off the cliff and I won’t even bother putting you back together.” - Gwynevere stood up and left, against the backdrop of yellow sun rays her hair lit up, copper, crownlike.

It was bright enough outside now to see the tall rock walls of the highland from across the plains, and he wasn’t certain whether it was his imagination or an illusion conjured by the morning heat, but for a moment he could see them shift, gentle, like a chest rising and falling in sleep.

  


\---

  


“Here!” - Grayson was leading them forward at a brisk pace, twenty knights and himself, following the curve of the rock ridge that led to the army’s camps a good four miles behind them. Ornstein, for whom the heavier armour of a silver knight was still a slight burden, sighed in relief when they finally stopped while Grayson examined the wide opening in the rock.

It was the Month of Dew and though the year hasn’t reached its hottest, by the time the sun was high and white on the sky it was more than warm enough to make a silver knight sweat. Ornstein reached for his helmet to lift it just enough to fix the neck of the leather vest that held his chainmail together, his gauntlet comfortably cold against his skin.

They knew very little about today’s excursion save for the fact that it was to recover a recon squad the captains lost contact with while exploring this cave two days ago. The army always needed more space, especially now that the giants sworn to Lord Gwyn had to be stationed miles behind for a lack of space, and as a result all construction work slowed down to a near halt.

Grayson had been as irritating as ever in the past months, but Ornstein was so worn down by the training he couldn’t be bothered to pay him any mind. He did burden Ornstein more so than anyone else in his squad but on one hand this was understandable for a new recruit who had to be trained quickly to survive and carry his weight in the battles to come, on the other it made him weary enough so he wouldn’t consider disobedience and for once he was thankful for that. He had his ambition and he had his fire, but it was worthless without a chance to prove himself first.

“Deidre, Sowen, to the cave with you. I want you to find those tracks before we plan our next step. But be quiet inside of there. The rest of you, take five minutes to refresh. Be alert though.” - Grayson sounded uncharacteristically agitated, maybe worried, it put Ornstein on edge.

“The two who went in are his senior knights. The rest of us are never told anything.” - The knight next to Ornstein leaned closer so he could hear him, voice low, to avoid the captain’s wrath. - “How you doing? Boiled in that pretty silver yet?”

“Like an egg in a soup pot but I’ll live. What tracks are they speaking of?”

“Lords only know. Not dragon, that much is sure, they detest living in the rock and are too large besides. Maybe some lesser lizards. Maybe some lurking fungal monsters, maybe nothing.” - The knight shrugged and took a long drink from his waterskin, helmet in one hand. He was only an inch taller than Ornstein but large and heavyset, and Ornstein was certain he could throw him across the plains, armour and all, if he wished.

The white of the plains, the rust-red tinge of the rock and the gaping black maw of the cave fit together in such a stark contrast that Ornstein thought it almost unreal, painting-like. He’d spent all his army years surface-side yet every day he’d find something stunning, something that touched his soul and forged his willpower stronger. It was jarring, even to himself who witnessed this struggle first-hand that half of him was voracious for life and wanted to see and experience more with each passing day, while an equal half anticipated the final blade or dark chasm he’d step into with some sort of calm longing.

“Ready to report, Sir.” One of the knights ducked out of the cave entrance, saluting at Grayson, who beckoned him closer. “We’ve found the tracks of a fifty-strong group of soldiers heading inwards, but none out. There’s a set of caverns we can reach immediately without climbing, however they lead towards the depths and there are no cracks or light shafts to speak of. We can hear water in the distance and there are old roots, coming up from below. Sowen is just inside examining them.”

“Good work. Knights! Two in the lead, two in the back! Prepare a set of torches. And listen up! We lost a strong group in there with no survivors spotted so far. There’s no telling what it is. There may have been a cave in, or there could be something hungry lurking in the dark, be prepared for either case. Understood?”

“We form rows of three, as long as there is enough space. Shields front, spears next, middle row with torches front and back. You see something move inside, you call it out. Understood?”

“Yes, Sir.” - Like thunder.

The torches bit into the thick dark of the cave. Ornstein watched it dance on the plates of the knights in front of him, watched them sway from one foot to another, anxious; something he himself didn’t feel as sharply anymore but had known well and needed to watch out for, as a captain. Ornstein, shield on one arm and the gauntlet of another resting lightly on the hilt of his sword, followed the steady rhythm of their advance into the dark. Disciplined and steady, only his dark eyes looking alive.

Despite the sense of encroaching danger the humid, cool air inside provided a moment’s relief to the knights after the heat of the sun that threatened to cook them inside the reflective silver armour. The air was laced with an odd stench, like dampness and mould, maybe even rot, but with a heavier, more suffocating edge.

“Lights high. I want to see the ceiling.” - Grayson held an arm out and the knights stopped, torches raised as far as their arms would allow, swallowing the dark layer by layer. More of the thick, winding roots came into sight, descending from somewhere above, but the roof of the cave remained covered by darkness. There were flakes of dust, or maybe plant matter, drifting down slowly, casting trembling shadows in the dim orange light. There was an eeriness to the cave that put them all on edge, and in the thick air somehow all noises muted, softened, blended together; the crackling of the fire and the disorganised pattern of the knights’ shallow breaths came heavier, the sound uncomfortably close.

It was Grayson who broke the silence.

“Where is Sowen?” - His voice was muted, but still carried demand rather than concern. - “You said he was just inside.”

“He was, sir, just to the right, I’ve no idea where he could have gone. Should I call for him?” - Grayson grabbed at his knight’s arm, the clang of metal on metal too sharp, obtrusive, unwelcome in the oppressive dark.

“No. Keep quiet. Everyone keep quiet!” - They all waited for a moment, tense. Nothing else but the soft crackle of torches. -  “Fucking hell. I don’t like any of this.” - Grayson muttered under his breath. - “Losing fifty of those imbeciles to some slimy cave dweller is one thing, but one of my knights? My knights?”

“He was right there.” - The second tracker was still pointing towards the right side of the cave. Roots sprouted from the walls there, broke into thin branches, desperate maybe for whatever nourishment the stone could provide, cracking holes into its surface from below.

“Move with me. Silent.” - Grayson grabbed and lit another torch and walked closer, knights behind him. The light of the torch he held in his hand was obscured by his form, painting his shadow, oversized and shaky, on the opposite wall. - “There’s some sort of a tunnel, behind the roots, leading down. But surely he wasn’t daft enough to climb through there for the Sun’s sake, or not without proper warning first.”

“Could something have snatched him, sir?”

“Surely we would have heard a cry. Let’s move forward. And stay quiet, advance slowly, keep to your left. I don’t fancy any part of this cursed cave.”

The narrow entrance of the cave opened up as they headed deeper inside, all of the knights instinctively watching their step to keep the echoes of footsteps from waking something, anything. The clammy wetness in the air got ever thicker, the cave walls covered with a thin sheen of water, trickling down from some unseen source in the distant depths.

Grayson walked in the front with his remaining lieutenant, both torch in hand held towards the ground, and Ornstein had to lean to the side to get a proper look. The ground, once covered in fine moss was scraped bare by boots, strips and patches of the vegetation lay in disarray and the wounds were already covered by the dust-like layer of flaky, dead plant matter and spores. Two days old, by the sight of it.

“These cracks look new. See - the roots still connect them on the inside, not even dried out yet.” The knight spoke softly and Grayson raised his palm to call halt.

“Below. Look at those rocks.”

There was a natural arch in the ceiling in front of them, and as the torchlight finally uncovered the full height of it Ornstein soon realised a large chunk of the rock was missing, and the rest was only held together by the vein-thin roots it was webbed with.

“Nobody take another step.” The captain’s voice was louder now, more confident. “Clearly there has been a cave-in. We will look for any stable tunnels or passageways, see if there’s anyone still alive inside. Spread out, but not too far, men, and get to work. Don’t move any loose boulders without my say-so.”

The knights in front of Ornstein parted and finally he had a clear view of the ground before them, the running dark cracks that widened into a surprisingly circular hole, the sharp rock edge and the glistening surface of torn boulders below. The captain was talking to his lieutenant, voice hushed, and Ornstein stepped closer to them under the guise of lighting his torch on another’s.

“...there’s no guarantee. And it doesn’t explain Sowen’s disappearance. He’s smarter than to charge ahead or to lower himself through some sinkhole. If something snatched him? Had to be without a sound. We were so close. I only left him for a minute, not longer, and we were much further out.” Deidre had taken her helmet off, her black eyes reflecting a dozen dancing lights. There was fear on her face, fear that hasn’t dulled into loss or grief yet.

“There’s nothing we can do now but look. Stick with the squad and don’t let anybody, anybody out of your sight and beyond the reach of…” - Grayson’s eyes, scanning through the cave, met Ornstein’s for a second, who quickly turned away. - “...beyond the reach of the firelight, especially not the ones who suffer from brave idiot.”

“Sir.”

Though there was no command to, Ornstein took his own helmet off, it was nothing but an obstacle in the already lackluster light. He felt a breeze on his face, the smallest draft of cold coming from the direction of the eastern wall and he lowered his torch for a second, eyes closed, trying to feel it, trying to pin down its direction. It hit his chin first, before catching the fine hair at his temples that didn’t fit his braids. He lifted his torch and took a few steps forward, until he reached a patch of the ground that looked different, and in a moment he realised it wasn’t stone, but a layer of old, petrified roots, turned gray and brittle due to a lack of nutrients but still threaded so tightly together they’d appear completely solid to a careless eye. He experimentally poked at it with his boot, it didn’t sink but cracked and fell apart under his weight.

“Anything?” Grayson came up behind him, maybe curious of his motions. Ornstein merely gestured towards the flooring. “Deidre. Let everyone know to watch their footing and not to step on the roots.”

“Do you think we could have lost Sowen to one such opening in the ground, Captain?”

“Easily.” Grayson had an uneasy edge to his voice, a sharpness that rarely showed. “It must be an archtree. The ground must have shifted or the tree collapsed here eons ago but it didn’t quite die. The roots have been feeding off whatever little they could since, just growing, constantly growing, even when they ran out of space to. Gods only know how deep it runs. One could fall through here and have the fabric of roots dampen the noise, never to be found again.”

“But surely the ground won’t swallow a 50 strong group?” Ornstein offered softly, worried that the captain will take his question as an offense, but Grayson just nodded.

“No. Be on your guard.”

In a twisted way, Ornstein thought, this is eternity in its own right, the rotten humid corpse of an archtree feeding off of itself to weave a net into the hollow stone, erode it in its own particular way. How different it was from the camp, just a few miles down, where the wind had made a clean job of it. Mountains move and crumble but life, persistent, ugly, stubborn life remains hidden in the depths. How many archtrees their army had burned already to strip the dragons from a place to hide, when the same trees provided them food and shelter for hundreds of years, in the long age of the dark.

“Captain. I found a tunnel leading down, underneath the collapsed section. It looks stable enough at first glance.” The urgency in Deidre’s voice snapped Ornstein out of his thoughts. “With some agility one could climb it deep enough to see if there’s a cavern there, but there would only be space for a small person and it’s a good stone’s drop down and then back up. Steep and full of those roots, as well.”

“Let me have a look.” Grayson hurried across the hall to the section his lieutenant pointed at. The tunnel was easily missed before, obscured by the texture of the web-like roots. It was low, near ground level, at an angle so it started horizontal but just a foot in it took a curve and led downwards into darkness. The captain took a coin out of his pocket and dropped it, and he could only count three heartbeats before it landed with a dull thud. “I dare not drop a torch, if it lands on a dry patch then all of this will catch flame. I’m not sending any of you down there. We ought to find another path or climb down the rockslide but clearly this is not the right job for one heavily armoured, let alone a group of twenty.”

Grayson swore under his breath and for once Ornstein had to agree with him. The silver knights were equipped and designed for an open battlefield, for tight formations and to resist against dragonfire and thrown lightning bolts, to march as one on level ground, not to crawl around in narrow caves where the armour was equally likely to get caught on some stray root, or to pull one down into the gaping depths by a misstep just for its weight.

In fact, and suspicion hit Ornstein, cold as ice, in fact it would have been unlikely to send fifty knights to a place like this in the first place. In fact, it was much more likely that they sent a group to scout that was expendable, unreliable, and only once they were presumed dead did they send knights to deal with a threat strong enough to take out such a group.

“I can fit.”

It could be my men, Ornstein thought. It could be any of the militia, any of the trainees, it could be volunteers and fresh conscripts and though they heard no sign of life it would be the least they could do to confirm they’re dead. If it were his men, Ornstein knew he would do whatever had to be done just to get eyes on them.

Grayson shot him an annoyed glance.

“Ornstein, this isn’t a training exercise. I don’t plan on losing any more of my men to some dusty underground tunnel.”

“I just want to find these men, any sign of them, just to know for sure we can’t get anyone out of here. Sir, you know I was an acrobat, I can climb rope, I can climb roots, even armoured.”

The captain considered him with a puzzled look.

“Fine. But you have to go alone, no backup. We’ll tie a rope around your waist, lower you down. You flash a torch, have a look, and we’ll be ready to pull you up should you see anything that moves. Got it?”

“Yes Sir.”

It only took a minute to throw his shield and helmet onto the floor, along with his longsword that could easily get caught in any crevice when sheathed on his waist. He dug the handle of his torch into a space between roots, just at the entrance of the tunnel so he could at least see something for the first few yards, and headed down. Climbing carefully, legs first, he tested the branches before every step, feeling for the texture of them as well as their strength. The very last thing he wanted was a sharply snapping dry branch and a sudden drop to alert whatever it may have been that lurked below.

The smell of soil and rotting roots was overwhelming. He carried on, arms tucked close to his body, twisting himself to avoid getting caught in the thick on the vines and roots, tucking away loose ones that threatened to come loose should he pass them again on his way up. The air was warmer once he progressed below the rock bed where the knights waited for him, and in the damp silence he felt sealed away, like waking up in a premature casket.

He reached below to find the next strong point to hold onto as he lowered himself, and his arm finally reached into thin air. The light of the torch above wore so thin he had to feel around for every step, steadying himself with his back against the wall and heels dug in he reached for his belt to light some resin.

Before he could act, he heard something. His eyes only caught a smudged shadow out of the corner of his eye, but he heard it skittering away with a scratching sound into the depths where the thick air sealed away the sounds again.

Resin in hand, quieting his own breathing, he waited for a minute, but there was nothing besides the steady thump of his own heart in his ears. Fear made all his senses sharper and for a moment he wondered if it’d be smarter to climb back up, tell Grayson he’d seen nothing and hurry to leave the cave, but he made a commitment to find those soldiers, if only to himself.

He felt out the safe end of a long match rolled in pine resin, it struck the stone with a familiar sound and though the flame died before it was born, for a second the smell of burnt wood and sulphur suppressed the stench of the cave. He tried again, stronger this time, and the match caught on fire, illuminating the expanse below with a blinding white flash.

Immediately he saw it in that one bright flash, and what he saw shook him to the core so deeply that he dropped the flame; the gauntlet of a silver knight reaching up for him from the dark, the wavering flame abandoned in the cradle of suffocating roots made the shadows dance as if the hand tried to move. Fingers braced in silver and leather closing and opening, a desperate last prayer, but Ornstein knew it was a trick of his mind only, and that hand would never move again.

He was a seasoned soldier. He’d stared dread in the face over and over and it didn’t make him waver, didn’t make him tremble and freeze as the sight did now.

 

Sowen died on his knees, one arm reaching up towards the tunnel where he undoubtedly was dragged into the depths, his other arm was gone, missing at the elbow, crystallised stone sprouting from its place like a morbid flower. Then, the fire was gone.

Ornstein’s hands moved on their own, lighting another match and casting it behind the knight’s statuesque corpse, and there it was, as if the intimidating ornaments for a lord’s dungeon, a group of soldiers, petrified, faces frozen into expressions of terror.

They must have died nearly at the same time. The majority of them huddled together, some still on the ground, unable to get back on their feet after the rockslide that pulled them down into this overgrown pit of hell, some with weapons in their hands, standing, ready for a battle that never happened. The cloud of petrifying dust would have covered them, streaming upwards from their feet, blinding them and seeping into their lungs. They never had a chance.

Somewhere in the dark clawed feet skittered past the border of the circle lit up by Ornstein’s match. He raised his head in the direction of the noise and all of a sudden there were two translucent, reflective eyes, staring him down. Almost hypnotising, they remained immobile, before lunging towards him. The body was surprisingly small relative to the size of the eyes, spiked and scaled, like a lizard, but much darker in colour; Ornstein blindly reached for a root to steady himself and kicked out with all the force his position would afford him. His foot met the body mid-jump with a dull thump and there was as a sharp crack as it landed on the petrified body of the knight below, breaking off the other arm and sending a handful of slate-coloured pebbles racing towards the unyielding dark.

“Up!” He tugged at the rope at his waist, his voice urgent with desperation. “Pull me up, gods be damned!”

Whether in response to his own voice, or that of the shattered stone below, another dozen bulbous eyes rose from the depth. In some form of a frightful harmony they turned towards the source of the noise, and within mere seconds what sounded like a million legs skittered towards Ornstein. He wasted no time. He jumped upwards using the root he rested on as support, body tensing up as he hoisted himself high enough to get out of the reach of claws and teeth. From below, he heard a hiss, and when he looked down he could see a puff of petrifying dust, it was lit up by the last few flickers of the match and gathered harmlessly like a blooming stormcloud against a black sky.

The beasts bundled together, staring up at him with idle croaks and cackles as the poison dissipated, then in the next moment they scattered, leaving nothing but the dark below. Ornstein continued to climb, desperate to get back into the reach of the warmth of the torchlight, that offered only the barest support.

He heard the chatter of the knights above and Grayson’s commanding voice but he was too focused on maintaining a firm hold and figuring out his path to make out the words. The rope gave him enough support to lean back while he grabbed for the edge of the tunnel, eyes set firmly on the torch he’d set there and the flames reflected on the hands reaching out to help him back up. Once he locked hands with someone, whoever that was, and pulled himself forward he helplessly tumbled onto the rock floor, not even bothering to break his fall. He didn’t realise how draining the short climb up had been, and there, head against the stone, he took a moment to catch his breath. The struggled to fight down the urge to vomit, part from the revolting smell of petrifying mist, part from his body snapping out the numb shock of the sight below. The scurrying and hissing was still loud in his ears and he wasn’t sure whether he could still hear it or if it was his fear-infested imagination.

Grayson offered him a hand but he stood up on his own, taking deep, even breaths to fight the nausea and to calm down enough to speak.

“What did you see?”

“We need to get out of this cave, now.”

“I asked what you saw, knight.” Grayson stepped into his space and without contemplation or thought Ornstein shoved him away, having just barely enough restraint not to strike him in the face.

“Did you know it was my men?” His voice was low, threatening. “Did you know it was the Hallow’s Stone soldiers you sent down into a pit of basilisks to turn into stone?”

There was a cloud of whispers spreading amongst the knights behind them but neither man paid it any mind. Grayson’s eyes bore into his fiercely, blue against Ornstein’s dark eyes that looked like liquid fire in the low torchlight.

“You don’t have men. You’re a knight. Remember your place.”

“You know who we were looking for, you knew they were likely dead, and you brought me along, you hand picked 20 to bring along including me just to see my reaction-”

“You have such an exaggerated sense of self-importance.” Grayson’s voice was little more than a growl, whether he leaned close to keep the rest of his knights from hearing the details of the conversation or to tower over Ornstein in an intimidating manner was hard to tell. “Maybe someone should teach you a lesson on just how much is out of your control, how little you matter, it would be to your own advantage.”

“Maybe someone should have prepared trained scouts instead of blindly sending men you think disposable. Maybe stalling this missing for two days - two days! After you lost them would be why we found them petrified rather than alive.”

“Do not taunt me, boy.”

“Do not “boy” me, Sir.” Ornstein snapped back without hesitation and there was an open provocation in his eyes, barely there but so obvious at the same time, it finally got Grayson to snap. He grabbed Ornstein by the chestplate nearly lifting him off the ground and threw him against the wall behind him so hard his head bounced back from the stone. The echo of it was loud and unwelcome, and both men froze for a second before Grayson continued, voice so low even Ornstein could barely hear it.

“Now listen to me son, and listen to me well. You are nothing. You’re as worthless as the men who died down that dusty hole and considering your kind, all torches and pitchforks peasants playing soldier, are so prone to desert, be grateful if I even bother to investigate them disappearing rather than assuming they ran off. Were it not for the need of the army I would have sent another fifty and I would have slept well that night.”

Grayson leaned in, face red, nose almost brushing Ornstein’s.

“Learn your place and quickly. You’re not the first one coming from rank to have an attitude when conscripted that I need to strip off, and if you think dishonouring you by moving you back to your filthy militia is the worst I can do, think again. Should you fall into that dark pit by accident never to be seen, I’m the one who will report you a deserter, and you’ll die nameless. Even your precious men will forget you existed.”

They remained there against the wall, eyes locked, Grayson with one forearm pinning Ornstein’s throat and one hand on his dagger. Yet, when Ornstein spoke his tone was even, and the only thing betraying him was the defiant smile in his eyes.

“Understood, Sir.”

“Now, report.”

Grayson let go of him, and he rubbed his throat with one hand before starting to talk, but it couldn’t clear the hoarse edge from his voice nor the dull anger it carried.

“Basilisks below. By the dozens. Sowen is dead, so is what I saw of the scouting group down there. They had stepped on that weak layer of stone up front that had a rotten trunk of an archtree below and it pulled down a section of the floor when it cracked. They were trapped and got ambushed by basilisks. They must have dug the tunnels we’ve seen before. Cave’s completely infested.”

“They must have been laying their eggs in there for decades until those idiots trampled over the remains of the tree and agitated them.” Grayson took a few brisk steps back and then forth again, hand heavy on the hilt of his dagger, this time a gesture of anxiety. “None of us know how deep that cavern runs. Even if we manage to exterminate the beasts there’s no telling how many are burrowed into the walls or may hatch from some dark crevice.”

“Captain!” The scream came from one of the knights Ornstein didn’t know by name, pointing at a moving shadow behind the mesh of roots taking up part of the wall. Another knight moved closer, striking at the claws visible latched onto the outermost layer of the meshed vines; there was a loud hiss and a puff of petrifying mist as the basilisk fell back into the depths. Dozens of claws appeared in its place, tearing at the dried out mass of roots, slowly but steadily opening way for the scaled bodies to slip through.

“Enough! Everyone, towards the exit, now!” Grayson finally gave the order and the knights obeyed, scrambling to escape basilisks and their poison in a running pace.

They were everywhere. Climbing through every nook and cranny in the walls, the thinnest patch of dead vegetation, where the roots fell away or the rock became brittle or porous enough to crumble they flooded the surface, hissing and filling the air with their noxious mist.

They were still deep enough into the cave not to see any natural light. Somebody tripped and fell in the back; Ornstein jumped to pull them up but before he could get there a wall of petrifying mist rose between them. Coughing violently he tried to wave it out of the way to no avail until someone grabbed his arm and yanked him forward so hard he lost footing and bumped into them.

“Are you mad? Run, just run!”

Stumbling, dizzy with the acidic smell and bitter taste of the mist in this throat he pushed forward. One of the lizards, eating through the thick roots of the walls freed itself and lunged forward, knocking down the knight in front of him and biting at their armoured neck in vain. Ornstein slashed at it blindly, cutting the head and severing the skin holding a pearlescent, ghastly eye up. Without support it flopped to the side, and as he followed the trail of black blood running down Ornstein noticed another pair of eyes, much smaller are reptile-like, just above the maw. With a burst of confidence, he thrust downwards between the set of small eyes, his blade bit into the skull with a crack and got stuck when the beast violently twitched and rolled over. Ornstein, chased by the smell of the crawling poison cloud behind him, tried to free his sword in a panic, but something or someone knocked into him from behind, loosening his grasp on the hilt and making him lose balance. He rolled forward, quickly recovered, and tried to look back - he was certain there was someone on the ground, just a second ago, somebody he could have, should have pulled up and helped - but now there was nothing but the rolling vapour burning into his skin.

The moment a ray of the sun hit his face, fresh and clean and at this point feeling like some sort of divine mercy, it burned away the remainders of poison that clung to his skin still. He whipped around, slowly backing away from the dark; there was a certainty in his mind that the basilisks couldn’t take direct sunlight. Only one of them made a half-hearted assault, it leapt past the cave entrance only to be cleft clean in half by Deidre’s greatsword. Grayson was on the ground, on his side behind her, mouth foaming and hacking up his lungs and Ornstein felt a passing vindictive hope that he’d inhaled too much poison.

“Resin.“ Ornstein’s voice was little more than a croak, he was still halfway between suffocating and the panic of the clean air not filling his lungs no matter how hard he tried. “We need resin… Firebombs… Seal it shut.”

“Captain?” Deidre was asking Grayson for permission. Her face was pale and grayish and she was leaning on one foot as if she’d injured the other. Grayson, with a momentary break from the fits of his body trying to expel what he’d inhaled nodded and threw his own packet of resin at her feet, next to one half of the basilisk she’d slain.

Dark guts spilled into the sand, blood resembling tar or blackened glue. Deidre kicked it away and it flopped skin-side, still, somehow, twitching. The sight was sickening.

They counted sixteen when they set off for camp.

  


\---

  


When Ornstein found Amelia she was practicing with a bow and arrows alongside a dozen from his old group; he cut her surprised greeting short by locking her in a tight embrace.

“What the hell, captain.”

“Just glad you’re alive.”

“The only danger to my health is you suffocating me.” She wasn’t exactly used to displays of affection from Ornstein who, with most people, went out of his way to avoid physical contact. She awkwardly pat his back. “Or yourself, seeing where your face is wedged.”

“I’m back from the battlefield and I must seek comfort where I can find it, Amelia.” His voice was muffled and she laughed, grabbing him by the shoulders to hold him at an arm’s length.

“You do look like hell.”

“Flattering as always.” Ornstein nodded at the group behind her and she waved at them, encouraging them to continue with their game. Ornstein observed silently for a minute; shooting a wooden bowl off the fence was one point, a tankard three, and pinning a tankard to the wooden logs that actually had a target painted on them was ten. A simple shortbow was no dragon slaying weapon, and Ornstein doubted it could even slay a man in the hands of his old crew. He shook his head.

“So, my beloved captain.” Amelia put a hand on Ornstein’s shoulder, shaking him lightly. “Would you care to join me for a drink at the glorious and luxurious tavern just over there so you can tell me about whatever it is that you saw? Or do I have to stare you down with worry because you have that dead look in your eyes?”

Ornstein breathed in deeply. The world smelled like bonfires and warmth, iron and stew and tanning leather in the distance. The war camp was the closest to home he’s ever had and he wanted it to be enough, but it never has been.

“I think I’ll take you up on the drink.”

They had mead and the world was a slight bit warmer, now, the cold knot in his stomach dissolving, but the fear didn’t disappear, just left its space for a hopelessness that Ornstein was still too prideful to show. He felt at ease with Amelia, but he still felt responsible for her, too responsible to impart the full volume of his desperation on her. Above all he was exhausted but he was more than his exhaustion, and that he had been her captain, the one to motivate her and encourage her for so long, even when the tides were high and the blood ran free and they were neck deep in the war has definitely left him unable to express when he was shaken up, and how shaken up he was.

This is nothing like in the old days of the dark, he thought. Life was so simple when the army wasn’t divided by rank, when there wasn’t lords and knights, soldiers and mercenaries, gods and undead. He remembered the purity of just fighting side by side with his fellow soldiers, shoulder to shoulder, without any intricate politics behind the scenes and insufferable captains to degrade them, just them and their desire to see the light, to feel the warmth of the sun. All the blood that ran was drawn in an even fight. No man worth more than another.

“You ever heard about basilisks when you were a kid?” The chair Ornstein sat in was covered with a pelt, and though the stains made it difficult to even tell what animal it was, it was soft enough to pull him in. He felt himself sinking, every emotion inside him uncurled and dissolved into pure exhaustion.

Amelia shook her head.

“The basilisks had always been something from a story, something to keep you from heading too deep into the caves alone, not something you see yourself. Not something you… I mean to turn people into stone? You see sorcery and you see miracles but it’s. It doesn’t compare. I never thought you could but their faces, they all keep the expression, frozen like a death mask.”

Amelia’s expression changed, eyebrows drawn, tense.

“Please don’t tell me this is about the Hallows’ group that went missing.” Ornstein didn’t reply. “All I knew was they went out on orders. And I figured they wouldn’t be back after the first day. I only knew a couple of em. I thought we’d lost them but that… That’s no way for a warrior to die.”

“I don’t want you to ever be in one of these little scouting runs, I don’t want you to die cleaning caves and getting stepped on by drakes, Amelia. I want you to at least have a fair chance of-”

“Captain. Ornstein.” Her hand was on top of his, larger, warmer, steadier. He focused on it for a minute, skin tanned, crisscrossing scars old yet surprisingly white. She had a big, square hand, calloused and rough, one you’d expect from someone who’s chopped wood or carried weapons their whole lifetime; and wholeheartedly he wished she got a hand like that logging or tending a farm. Soft, powerful, fearless Amelia who had some dauntless resolution Ornstein envied every day, who wasn’t plagued by nightmare and haunted by tragedy. Amelia, who his thoughts snapped to the moment he suspected Grayson sent the militia into that basilisk-infested pit to die. “I’m a soldier.”

That was all she said, and it was all that needed to be said. Amelia wasn’t him, she wouldn’t pick and choose what orders to obey, she wouldn’t second guess let alone challenge her own commander. She was loyal to the oath she took to the army, and she’d follow it down the darkest pit it took her. No matter how much Ornstein himself had encouraged her to question his decisions, to call halt when he went too far, she’d chosen to give Ornstein that unwavering loyalty, that he could ever inspire it, was still beyond his understanding.

She had faith. She had faith in order, law, justice, and she had faith in the people she’d chosen to follow. Ornstein was a faithless man, godless, bordering on heresy on a bad day; and though it had kept him alive and kept him focused on his own strength, decisions, his own limits, he often felt she was the image of what an ideal soldier looked like. That it was her uncompromising faith the knights and gods and commanders should search for, she was an ever-glowing light of a star compared to his wildfire.

Always, even in this moment, she seemed more content with her place than he was.

“You should be knighted. If I ever have any say in it, you will be.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

Ornstein turned away and downed the rest of his drink. The warmth spread in his body and with it the numbness in his mind and for that he felt blessed.

“I fought my captain about the team we lost, you know. I really riled him up, he had me pinned against a wall and all, threatening to drop me into some dark hole.”

“You truly are out of your mind sometimes, with all due respect.”

“You’re right.” Ornstein rubbed his face in a gesture of annoyance. “I don’t know what got into me, it was foolish. He deserved it, and worse, sure enough, but to get angry in that situation… We lost three just running out of that cave, and there’s no telling if it could have gone better if I focused on escaping first and then worrying if my captain got my men killed and dragged me along to see them dead just to teach me a lesson.”

“Is that really something he would do?”

“No, likely not.” Ornstein sighed heavily. “I doubt it was intentional, not the whole thing, surely - I get the feeling he thought them slaughtered or just deserters and assumed he’d teach me a lesson when we found them, but he wasn’t prepared for basilisks and their curse. None of us was. There were no early signs and given how rare… given how much they hate light and those who carry it we need to work harder to understand their habits, their burrows, the ways to anticipate them. Still, the way he would gloat about how little our kind matters… It really gets my blood boiling, you know that.”

“Your blood is too easy to boil. Please do not get yourself killed. It’d serve no one to have you stabbed in the back and left to rot in some forgotten cave because you made the wrong commander angry.”

“I ought to taunt him until he challenges me to a duel so I can get him first, fair and square.”

Amelia gave him a long, hard look. Ornstein could tell when she was frustrated with him, she’d draw her eyebrows together just so, that rare, marbled hazel of her eyes flashing at him from under them. One eye green, one gray - always making his focus swap between one and another. He could imagine her a knight, throwing bolts of sunlight with the Lords when she had a glare like that.

“Just don’t forget we’re fighting a war, captain. Challenging your superiors is not cheap entertainment.”

“It was a jest, I will not duel him.” Ornstein huffed, bitter. “It is useless anyhow, since he won’t change, my men won’t come back and I have no idea how I lost my temper bad enough to get into it in the first place. I need to keep focusing on what’s important. I need to get into the council, or gods only know how, earn the favour of the commanders so I can make a case for having all of you armoured and trained.”

“Slay a dragon, mayhap. Or two.” Amelia was smiling, and Ornstein threw his empty tankard at her.

“Only for you, I’ll slay three. If only we could stop rooting in caves and building this cursed camp and find a fitting battlefield to meet them. I’ve been knight for months and what have I done? Training, training, training.”

“You’re overly eager to get into the thick of it. You’ll regret your words when a dragon bites you in the ass.”

“I’d compliment it on its good taste before slaying it.”

“You are so insufferable, Captain. How anyone puts up with you is a question that couldn’t be answered by the gods themselves”

Ornstein smiled, but his smile was distant. They’d been through too much. Most of the knights came from nobility and it was nobles who called the orders; none dressed in silver had been dragged through the mud like they were, sent into battle just to test the resolve of the enemy, used as bait, ordered to clear nests of dragonkin and vile, malformed lizards by the hundreds. They wouldn’t face the razor of claws and the needle of teeth in leather and torn chain, they’d stand next to the lords when the dragons came and benefit fully from their miracles.

Morale has been low for a while in the lower camps. None of them enjoyed being stuffed away in caves and more caves, anticipating a fight with no prediction when it’d come. Amongst the knights it became clear they’d have to make the next move, they’d have to find the horde and take the fight to them after the Firstborn has decimated one of their ancients. It was curious, Ornstein thought, that they could orchestrate a retreat at such a scale at the loss of one of their own, just one, rather than surging forward with fury to avenge it.

It left a bad taste in his mouth, a worry that there was a piece missing, that their lack of understanding of the dragons’ true nature will draw them into a trap and an early grave, suffocating their rebellion in the cradle of the age of fire. More than anything, he wanted to act early, he wanted to be prepared and as a man who’d been part of the militia since its conception he knew the potential, he knew many of them would rise and outperform any silver knight if given the chance.

Amelia’s voice drew him back into the present, soothing, laced with concern.

“...you can’t care about everyone. It will drown you. I mean it.”

“Your advice, as always, is deeply appreciated.” Ornstein gave her a little mock bow but he meant every word. “Thank you for listening. I’m just shaken today. I will recover when I’m on the open battlefield again.”

“You need to rest, and not think about battlefields for the rest of the day.”

“I know not what that rest is, the one you speak of, and how to do it.”

“Just do what everyone else does, my dear captain.”

“And what is that?”

“Get drunk, find a man you fancy, kiss the bad dreams goodnight, pass out straight into tomorrow.”

“Can you vouch for that technique?”

“Me? Oh, not me. I just go find my difficult, full of shit captain when I need a bit of distraction from the soldier’s life.” Ornstein smiled, and it was easy to tell when he was genuine from the dimples appearing on his face. Amelia reached over to pat his cheek. “Don’t lose yourself.”

“I know you care for me, I know you do, but you must stop worrying about me. Instead I can recommend supporting me on my journey to order some spirits. The getting drunk part of your wise advice there was the only part that grabbed my attention.”

Amelia ordered a full bottle of something extraordinarily vile. Thankfully she called her whole squad to share it with, if only to escape the responsibility of poisoning Ornstein, and for a few blissful hours there were no basilisks or commanders on his mind.

  


\---

  


The mighty sword missed his eye by an inch, and only thanks to his quick reaction. Still, it drew a sharp line on his face, below the cheekbone; his blood ran down towards his chin, thick, with a metallic sheen unlike that of men born of the dark.

Truly, he bled more often fighting his father, than fighting dragons on the battlefield.

“If I put any weight into that thrust, you'd be dead!” The Lord of Sunlight thundered, raising his sword again for a sweeping slash that the prince blocked half-heartedly before backing out of range with a swift step.

He raised his hand towards the sky to summon a bolt of lightning, thicker and stronger than the ones his father would throw, and lighter in colour, it crackled in an unrestrained fury to match his. Instead of throwing it, he held onto it for a moment longer than advised, until it grew unstable and started splitting smaller bolts that kissed at the skin of his upper arm, his shoulder, and only then when the lightning wouldn’t be held did he release it, cracking it directly into the ground in front of him. The force of it pushed Gwyn backwards, staggering him momentarily, giving the prince a moment to breathe.

The bolt of lightning left a burnt, sickle-shaped impression in the stone in its wake.

The prince was unarmoured, wearing nothing but his bindings, black fitted trousers and a single braced leather glove on his left hand. The familiar red pattern of electrical burns on his arm and shoulder appeared slowly, spreading like a web on his bronze tinted skin, easy to see.

The King stepped closer and they circled each other, Gwyn’s heavy steps a stark contrast to the Firstborn’s bare feet barely making a sound. The prince was a tall man, broad-shouldered and with a proud posture but he was easily dwarfed by the stature of his father. Their eyes connected and there was such an intense concentration, such a fierce glare between them that on its own it threatened to spark lightning.

“Indeed, however powerful your sunlight bolts, they’re still not enough to scratch me.” The Lord’s voice was mocking. He raised his greatsword, idly gesturing at the prince’s shoulder. “And yet it’s more than enough to mark your own skin. I tire of your brazen carelessness. If you take that into battle, if you charge forward wasting everything in one blow it will burn you out before making a decisive strike, as you are well aware.”

“Shall I sit on a silk throne and have giants carry me? Shall I give out orders and bark commands without ever lifting a blade, like you do, my King?”

Rather than dignifying his words with a response Gwyn lunged forward, his blade barely touching the prince’s abdomen before he sidestepped and knocked it out of the way with his; the King turned the momentum of it into a wide slash, so sudden that the firstborn had to raise his left hand to block it from his face.

“Do I have to run you through before you start taking this seriously?”

“You may try, Lord father, if that is your wish.” His brows furrowed, eyes locked onto Gwyn's sword, body turned partway to provide him with a less clear target. They both carried the same ornate greatsword, sharp and true, as it had been a custom in fights between them ever since the prince’s childhood. He reversed his grip on the blade, leaving himself seemingly exposed, arms spread, taunting.

His Father, as anticipated, aimed a thrust at his midsection, he parried the blade to the side but didn't anticipate the King’s other fist, swung at his face.

“Useless!” Gwyn’s voice echoed from the walls, his mere anger powerful enough to dim the light of the torches in the hall as he shouted. “If this is your best performance you will be slain by the next stray dragon and it is what you will deserve.”

“Were you to pay attention to the battlefield, Father, you would have seen me pull an ancient dragon on from the sky-”

“The one that took hundreds of lightning bolts by a whole army to weaken before you arrived. But my son, my valiant son wants not the strife, only the glory.”

“You have seen me fight, my lord Father. I have taken battles for you, I have slain dragons for you, I have shown you my merit in ways-”

“You are an excellent warrior.” Gwyn lowered his blade and the prince followed suit. “Your heart and fire is without match amongst common men but you must be held to greater standards, not only is your soul born of fire, my fire, you are to be king, you are War and you’ve not earned your name yet. Remember when we broke ground at the start of our age, remember when first breached the surface and showed the first dragons that we are to be feared. Your success was unmatched for you were fighting only to test the strength of your arm and your courage, to measure the true extent of your destruction, to take joy in the thunder of your soul breaking apart the land. But years have passed and you remain the same.”

“I have no wish to become anything else. If you have need of commanders, of whom you have plenty-”

“They are men! Men born of the dark!” The King’s voice was harsh, unforgiving, shaking the very stone they stood on. “I cannot trust them to lead the army and I cannot trust you to mature enough to understand how the times have changed, how the conditions of every battlefield have changed, and how you must rise to the occasion and face our enemies with the fury of our entire army behind you. No matter how many dragons you slay with your own bare hands, as long as you will not learn the ways of war, you are useless to me. I have no need for a warrior. I have need for an Heir. I have need for a leader, and you are but an angry boy swinging a blade.”

The prince remained silent and unmoving, nothing but the fire in his golden eyes betrayed that he was alive and not a grand statue raised by his father’s hands.

“I would take my leave if you permit, my Lord.”

The king merely waved dismissively to permit him to go, but called out to him as he was just about to leave the cavern that served as their training grounds.

“Gwynsen.” Gwyn’s voice had an edge to it, a threat or a warning, so his words wouldn't be mistaken for mere advice. “What I say and I do, I do for my kingdom, not my selfish whims and desires. You should consider to follow my example, unless you wish to be made an example of.”

“Thank you, my Lord, for your guidance.”

“And that cut on your face? Do not have it healed by your sister. I wish your shame to be known. I wish for all to see that strong as you may be you have not bested me yet.”

The prince turned only slightly to cast one last look at the form of his father and King, who in the scarcely lit cave was only a dark, commanding silhouette now. He knew the truth, was raised with the truth, and was confronted with it at every failure, that his own soul is merely a splinter of the endless soul of sunlight that was bequeathed to his father and his father alone. That it would be torn from his chest without hesitation should he not transform himself into the king’s shadow was a permanent looming threat on his mind. Indeed, how the times have changed.

Outside, the sun had just dipped below the horizon. The stars, dotted across the sky were bright, visible, even against the pink backdrop that didn’t allow the deepest dark of the night to crawl behind them, making the stars seem sharp and the world dull at the same time. The dark that didn’t feel like home anymore. He felt alone.

The familiar rift in the stone led his gaze back to the camp, where thousands of tents lit up like bright lanterns, filling the air with the smell of burning oil and warmth. He spotted a lone silver knight walking up the steps from the militia’s base camp, lantern in hand and steps weary, and in the moment he wished to be him.

  


\---

 

 

Even at the sun’s highest it was much less warm than yesterday, bright clouds covered the sky and they moved at such a speed it could make one dizzy staring up for long. Ornstein welcomed the lack of scorching heat, even though the activity made him sweat just the same.

He had beaten the first three knights he was set against - each opposing pair had to draw a piece for straw and whoever got the longest would choose the weapons. Grayson split the knights into four equal groups, and whoever would come out on top would be pitted against one another in pairs, the winner of each round he’d fight himself. With their conflict on the prior day largely unresolved Ornstein was prepared to settle it through a fierce fight, but there was a distraction to him, a thoughtfulness that followed in the wake of his conversation with Amelia.

Unlike every other knight in his division he never fought Grayson before, knew nothing of his style, he realised.

How he wished to be a simple warrior again, no scheme, no hidden intent, no plan at all, to be able to focus on nothing but the burn in his shoulders, the strength of his grip and the shift of his weight. How he wanted to clear his mind and fight, as he was, like the fire in his soul that burned bright. But it was not the time.

“Is there nobody here to beat the newcomer into the ground? What a shameful outfit I’m running here.” Grayson’s voice was humorous but there was that hint of a threat he always carried. “Must I do everything by myself? I think, to make the odds more even, I’ll let Ornstein pick the weapon for once.”

“Glaive, if you will, Sir.” Grayson threw him one before taking one for himself, and Ornstein took a minute testing the balance of the weapon, testing how easily his grip would slip along the handle. It was not the most even weapon, blunt for the purpose of training yet fully capable of causing injury with the right amount of force applied. Ornstein trained with nothing but swords and battle axes for the majority of his time as a soldier, when times were desperate enough that he had to sleep and wake with a weapon glued to his hand, and he had to be able to use anything, regardless of quality. The glaive was very much a new taste for him, unlike a heavy greataxe or greatsword it didn’t hinder his mobility and he could amplify the power of his blows better than with any other weapon, it flowed with his agility, it could be elegant and brutal.

He bowed to Grayson, to indicate he was ready for the duel, and the captain tipped his head in return.

“Watch and learn, boy.” He said to Ornstein under his breath. If it was any other situation Ornstein would have scoffed at his confidence, but he kept his face still as stone, only his gaze alive.

They circled each other without a single attempt to strike, just watching each other’s movements, the weight of their steps, almost unblinking. Grayson was larger and heavier, no doubt stronger too, but Ornstein had a dancer’s grace, with his glaive extended behind his back, grip reversed, his whole body was like a drawn bowstring.

Grayson attacked first, a ferocious downward swing; Ornstein avoided it with only a turn of his upper body, then he dodged the follow-up, leaning out of the way of the first wide sweep and stepping back in front of the second.

“Come on!” Grayson charged at him, impatient, stepping into his space with an attempt to push him out of the circle with a wide grip on his glaive. It clashed with Ornstein’s, his weapon swung forward at a surprising speed, grip an exact mirror turning steel solid in the last possible second, and the two of them were nose to nose before Ornstein ducked to the side, planted a foot behind his captain’s, and tapped the blunt end of the handle right between his shoulder blades, making him tumble forward.

Grayson spun around and righted himself with surprising precision. He used the same movement to thrust forward, glaive fixed to his hip bone, a move that Ornstein parried too hastily, leaving the captain too much space and an opening for an easy follow. Rather than aiming at his chest again, Grayson angled his new blow downward, blade colliding with Ornstein’s knee. Though he was forced to roll using his shoulder, he rose seamlessly onto a half knee at the end, chained the motion into a full overhead swing that was just short of grazing the captain’s neck.

They circled each other again, slower than before, Ornstein was so focused he felt everything very sharply in that moment. He felt the texture of the sand as his boot dragged in it sideways, he felt the brush of his braids against the back of his armour, the sweat running down his temple, he felt his gloves tighten as he adjusted his grip, one hand loose, one hand steady. He made one lazy swing towards the larger man’s midsection, he defended against it with so much force the metal vibrated against his hands.

Grayson moved to the offense, one swift strike after another, seemingly encouraged as Ornstein blocked them just barely, only deflecting the blade enough to graze instead of colliding. The captain didn’t relent, pushing Ornstein to the very edge of the circle until he had no space to dodge anymore. Instead he blocked, locking their glaives together and attempting to overpower Grayson and push him back, without any success. Grayson’s blade slipped on top of his and Ornstein took a hit in the jaw, stumbled, and before he could recover the captain was standing next to him, the pointed tip of the blade to his throat.

“That settles that.”

There was a smug expression on Grayson’s face that he managed to keep on even despite breathing heavily, and Ornstein, though expressionless, felt equally smug about his satisfaction. Out of the five times he could have scored, Grayson noticed none, and judging by his tone he was pleased with the outcome; which, as Ornstein had hoped, would keep him happy enough not to take revenge on him for his prior lapse in judgement.

He sat in the shadows to watch the next match between Grayson and a knight named Leigh, who, to everyone’s surprise chose greataxe. Ornstein pondered if they hoped to count on the captain’s lack of expertise with the brutish weapon, or if they’d taken a more overt approach to keeping the captain happy. The axe was almost comically large over their shoulder. He wondered how many of the fourth division’s knights came to the same conclusion as him, to treat their commander like a tantrum-prone child.

Surely Grayson was promoted for something, he thought. Maybe in his younger days he was more optimistic, more capable of leading by example, and he didn’t doubt his ability as a formidable warrior when his focus was in the right place. But there was also the fact of nobility, which Ornstein often completely forgot about, that as a knight he was forced to take a closer look at. Many people with little merit or skill sat in comfortable places.

The battle was over swiftly when Grayson bashed the smaller knight straight into the dust with a powerful blow that sat on the exact middle of their chestplate. My that time the sun was out again, and that half of the division who hadn’t fought yet, only spent hours to cook in the silver armour was getting visibly restless so followed by a round of applause Grayson waved them off to have lunch.

The headache, Ornstein’s remainder of yesterday night’s stress relief activities, was dulled since he’d woken up but he was certain a bowl of stew would speed up the process, and it would clear his irritation from the duel itself. He was certain Grayson will rub it in his face at any opportunity for weeks, and though he was not a praying man on his way to the canteen he prayed for the patience to endure his moods without any unnecessary resistance.

The service quarter was the first in the base camp to be given a stone foundation and solid walls made of kiln-dried logs, even though this camp was never meant to be permanent they had been scouting and mapping the area for weeks, and the areas that saw the most foot traffic simply had to be made out of durable materials, or at least more durable than waxed canvas and ropes. It was just inside the main body of the cave, outside of the reach of the rain and debris that fell through the cracks and eroded shafts in the ceiling, but close enough that natural light served well enough during the day.

“I saw that fight.”

Ornstein was startled by the voice, coming from the narrow alley next to the canteen building where a knight leaned against the roughly carved wood, helmet and greatsword hanging from his back. Clearly, even in the midday sun there were shady nooks from where a stranger could ambush him without much warning.

“I’m sorry, Sir?”

“Between you and Knight-Captain Grayson. You were holding back. ” Ornstein shot an annoyed glance at the man for the satisfied expression he had on his face. It was his very last desire on earth to be transparent enough for every common soldier to catch onto his motives, or to become a subject of gossip around the camp as a bootlicker or a weakling. “Worry not. It is not my intent to cause you alarm, I merely meant to start a conversation. Alas, I am not great at formalities and I thought I’d get straight to the point.”

He was slender and very tall, and wore a blue and silver scarf around his neck. His face was so covered in freckles he looked tanned or sunburnt, but in contrast to his otherwise light skin his hair was dark, shining pure black. Ornstein eyed him suspiciously.

“I am Ornstein, silver knight of the 4th division. If you’d be so kind to reveal your name, Sir, I’d be happy to continue our conversation alongside a meal.”

“Artorias. I run the 5th.”

Ornstein did his best to try to conceal his shock. Not only was the tall knight a captain, but he remembered his name faintly from his first conversation with Grayson himself. Could he be the man who advised his recruitment? It would be one reason to keep a closer eye on him.

“Did not realise I was talking to a captain, Sir. I apologise if I did not address you with due respect.”

Artorias scoffed.

“I have little regard for figures of speech and titles. But come, let us settle before I get to my point.”

They sat on one of the worn wooden benches in a distant corner of the mess hall, opposite of one another, Ornstein with a bowl of stew and black bread, poking at the bits of carrot rising to the surface absentmindedly.

“So it seems you let the dear captain beat you on purpose.”

“Tell me, Sir, what makes you say such a thing?”

“Unlike most of your squad who were spectating, I wasn’t distracted by having money in the game. Might be better if you buy a few beers later, some of them were really rooting for you.” Artorias’ posture was off, he hunched like he was too tall for the roughly carved canteen benches. He rolled his eyes at Ornstein’s intense stare. “I’ve been training knights for years. I’ve seen them move, seen them react; it’s not so difficult to see restraint, or pulled punches. It breaks your momentum, it disrupts your pace. And I’ve seen you fight before, in fact I’ve been keeping an eye on you since your recruitment and I do believe you have a rare talent of balance. You’re clean, you’re precise, you’re disciplined, you’re flexible and read movement well - you’re not one to take a step too short and stumble, or slip on a thrust and graze.”

“Not to second guess your judgement, Sir, and I do appreciate that you think so highly of me, but maybe I’m just hungover, or sore, or distracted.”

“Oh, spare me the games.” When Artorias smiled, wrinkles ran up to his eyes making him look older than he did before. Still, he was young, maybe younger than Ornstein and he wondered how he’d made it to such a high rank at his age. All other captains he’d met were in their forties, maybe late thirties, and Artorias was different, he had a warmth to him. “I know what I see. I’m not here to implicate or confront you so there’s no need to get defensive. I’m just curious about your intent, that’s all.”

“My intent? Surely there’s no grand reason, Sir. Maybe I just don’t want to piss my commander off on the first possible occasion.”

“As if you hadn’t pissed him off already, and abundantly at that.” Artorias laughed and leaned closer, his smooth, black hair spilled over his shoulder like a curtain of silk. “For one I am a captain so I read his reports, including his retelling of your insubordination and temper in vivid detail. For two - I am the one who recommended you to be drafted as a knight, so I am the one he airs his grievances to, extensively and at great length, I must say.”

“If you had heard of my behaviour on the recovery mission yesterday - I apologise. I know I have spoken out of turn and it won’t happen again.”

“Perhaps. It is what made me so curious about the reason you allowed him to defeat you today, especially since it’s something many soldiers would consider shameful. I have wondered if you’d meant to show him you understand and accept his superiority, or to let him believe you weaker and less capable than you are.” Ornstein considered him, carefully, with a measured calm that made his face seem unusually stern and Artorias raised his palms, defensive. “Of course, I don’t doubt that it was good judgement. Sir Grayson has a reputation for needing to be handled carefully.”

“What is your worry then, Sir?”

Ornstein found it hard to get a sense of Artorias’ character, everything about him, his look, his mannerisms, his tone seemed difficult to put a finger on. He could be furious or fond of him and Ornstein for the life of him couldn’t tell.

“These are no times for unrest and unnecessary competition. Sir Grayson is a captain - whether you find his performance as such pleasing or not. Should you rouse his men against him, should you challenge him or humiliate him in front of his own troops will come at steep consequences, you must understand that.” He paused. “And to covet the position of one such as Sir Grayson only shows you overestimate how much pull we all have. We are sworn to the Lords, and their will is law, do not forget that.”

Decidedly not fond then. Ornstein’s face remained emotionless. It was not a common occurrence for anyone to see through him, especially one he’d never as much as talked to, and he reminded himself to be more cautious. Whether or not Artorias meant well for him, if one questioned his conduct so would, inevitably, many others.

“I wish neither to see you dead” Artorias continued, “nor a captain deposed or discredited in a time of war when we haven’t enough as is, or the resources to train more. I would hope you, who were a captain on your own right, even if only amongst the militia, feel the tension in the camp as much as I do, and the next decisive battle is looming over us with uncertainty. I would hope you understand the pressing need not to upset the delicate structure of power in a camp that’s fully capable of turning on itself”

“I assure you, Sir, It had never been my intent to cause such, or to allow my actions to harm or hinder any of our own, regardless of rank.” Ornstein was sincere, if thoroughly frustrated to be confronted as such on the very day he put aside his pride and the anger he felt over the treatment of his own soldiers, and so soon after her own old second in command gave him a lecture. Only fitting, he thought, that the tall captain considered the upset of the camp much more a problem than the blatant waste of life that caused him to question his own captain’s authority to begin with.

Artorias watched him with his head tilted to the side, similar to a raven curious to figure out the nature of a shiny object it hasn’t encountered before.

“I want to learn more about you, Sir Ornstein. Your experience, your motivation, your past days in the army. I look into my recruits, I do research on the men I choose to take on as knights with a lot of care, especially as we lose numbers of our own and must take more and more who hadn’t been trained in the ways of knighthood from youth like most of us are. I know the groups you’ve led speak of you highly, and I’ve seen your skill; that alone was enough, but if you’re prone to overstepping certain lines it will be my responsibility to deal with it. I do hope you do not disappoint, for both our sakes, because I have an offer for you. I want you moved to the 5th division, my division. I want to supervise you as one of my own.”

Ornstein dropped the piece of bread he held in his hand. Artorias visibly suppressed a laugh at the sight of it, before his face returned to the seriousness befitting his proposal. Ornstein knew the fifth was a frontline division that fought alongside the Lords and only for that reason he felt a shiver of excitement.

“I- thank you, Sir, for the opportunity. I am grateful for your faith in me.”

“However, it is pending on one condition.”

“Name it, Sir.” Of course, everything has a price, Ornstein thought cynically.

“Every month, Prince Gwynsen, the Firstborn of Gwyn, Lord of Sunlight asks us to select two of our knights each for him to test in combat. I want you to be one of mine, tomorrow. It is why Sir Grayson was testing all of you, although I’m sure he gave no details. I want you to fight the Prince, and I want you to score a hit against him. You may think this an easy task, but I implore you, do not take it lightly.”

To fight the Heir of Sunlight sounded much closer to a boon than just a requirement to fulfill.

Ornstein remembered when he first saw him, distant on the battlefield, pulling spears of sunlight effortlessly from the black clouds he summoned. In a lot of ways that one moment had been his inspiration for what he wanted, what he wanted to be - a dragonslayer, a dark omen of destruction and radiant promise of victory all in one. He felt it somehow wrong but terribly exciting to stand against him as if he were his equal, even if he cannot compare and gets knocked out flat in a matter of seconds. There’s a fight where he wouldn’t hold back, wouldn’t need to.

“I accept your conditions, Sir.”

Artorias extended a hand towards him and he shook it, black leather against silver, equally firm grip.

“It is a done deal then. I will speak to commander Havel about our agreement, speak none of it before it is decided as I want no undue hostility between you and your captain. But before I make any further commitments, one more question, if you don’t mind.”

“Sir.”

“You seem to care deeply for the common soldiers and they seem to respect you just as deeply. I know not your history in the army and how deep it runs but I do know you had every opportunity to refuse Sir Grayson’s offer to become a knight and I feel you’re much more lonely and lost in our ranks. You gave up your title, you gave up working with the men you know and trust. What is it that you seek here? Glory? Power? The gods’ favour?”

It was a complicated question. Ornstein was unsure how much honesty he could afford the young captain without revealing too much, or upsetting him, but considering he’d shown Ornstein trust and respect he only thought it fair to give him something.

“I was with the militia for ten years during the war before I got where we are, right now. I’ve been a soldier for twelve. I came from nothing. I was nothing. I joined because I saw so much suffering and I thought all of us deserved a chance to breach the surface, live in the sunlight, found a kingdom where we have a chance to be ourselves, to break away from the dark muddy past of what we were below the ground. I wanted to help carve out a piece of land, make it ours. I’ve seen firsthand how much it matters to fight alongside men you care for, how much it matters to keep their safety a priority. When we first breached the surface at Hallows, just past the border of Catarina, there were so few of us, and we had to wade through miles and miles of bloodthirsty dragonkin to join the main body of the army. We all learned how much every single sword arm mattered.

And after, when we first fought as one united army, we all felt alive. We felt like we were building a legend, one soldier at a time, and I saw how much we accomplished, within such short years out of pure willpower and perseverance. I cannot support the views of men like Grayson to whom we are worthless because we weren’t trained from birth, or raised and nourished into rank from a noble family. I’ve led thousands, since those early dark days, and they put their faith in me because I was ready to die for them, because though I led them, we all knew we were the same, same goals, same dreams, same hideous tents and black bread and sleepless nights in the cold. I saw and felt how easy it was to understand my men, know their strengths, have them where they needed to be on the field. Day by day our numbers grew because that unity was something that inspired, and though all we had was rotten wood and rusted iron we trained our own, and we held a shield in front of each other to keep all from the fire.

Surely I could have turned knighthood down and gone back to leading them, and sure enough I could save at least some of them from the drake fangs and basilisk poison that the knights lead us into or have us clean up, but I believe I have to think bigger than that. So yes I wish for the militia to be better trained, better equipped. I wish them to be split into even units, I wish for those who are capable of leading to be promoted, supported and paid so, and I wish them deployed for missions they are capable of successfully executing rather than being used as fodder or bait. As a common soldier, captain or no, I can only accomplish so much. That’s why I wanted to become a knight.”

Artorias stared at him for a long, long minute, gray eyes sharp and piercing, as if attempting to gleam the truthfulness of Ornstein’s account directly from his own eyes, his expression. There was a tension between them, not anger or disagreement but a test for the strength of Ornstein’s will and he held his gaze, unflinching.

“If you doubt my intent, I only ask you to judge me by my actions instead, Sir.”

The tension broke and Artorias sighed, laughing to himself so softly it barely made any sound.

“Brave you are, if foolish, to lay your grievances bare with a captain you don’t know. But I appreciate that you shared with me at all, and know that I am one to judge a warrior based on his merit, not his title or family name, and I will see where your merit gets you tomorrow. Now, I must take my leave.”

Artorias stood up, looking frightful tall especially now that Ornstein scrambled to his feet so he could salute him.

Once again Ornstein was left to contemplate the course his life had taken, and the role he’d chosen to play in it. He had a strong urge to climb to the very top of the mountain, to just sit there and reflect and what he has achieved so far, and at what price.

He felt old, despite his youth the life in his years weighed heavily upon him and he’d seen so much destruction, so much blood and strife that he needed the focus, needed the clear head that having goals, having prospects to look forward to gave him.

Above all else his soul burned bright in his chest at the thought of facing the Firstborn tomorrow.

He took his leave to rejoin the rest of training, and he wondered why it is that thinking about a God of War fills him with so much peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay this chapter REALLY did not turn out the way I wanted it to and I've been sitting on it trying to bend it to my will for months but I conclude that it's beyond my power. i'll do better next chapter and hopefully without another year long break fffhh i am. sorry
> 
> Oh if you wanna see my silver knight ornstein this is him: https://twitter.com/_thunderhead/status/1112243768261070859


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